Differential Rotation
by Macx
Summary: When the PPDC mobilized all remaining Jaegers to fight the final battle against the Kaiju, one wasn't reactivated. Arcadia Zero and her pilots were sidelined; benched. Marshall Herc Hansen had heard rumors about Harlock and the Arcadia. Because ten years before Gipsy Danger descended into the Breach to blow up the Anteverse, Harlock's mission had been the same. Synergy AU
1. Chapter 1

My brain jumpstarted into another weird crossover, this time with a rather small fandom called Captain Harlock. As usual, I have no real explanation how this happened, but it did. One moment I sat flipping through TV channels, the next I stumbled over the 2013 CGI movie with the same name, Captain Harlock.

Then my brain came out of hibernation and my writer's block was gone.

This happened.

No clue why or how.

I apologize to the whole of Harlock fandom for whatever I did wrong with the characters and whatever outrage this might spark. I simply meshed all the various Harlock reincarnations together, used the CGI images from the movie in my head as I wrote him and Yama, and ran with it. I also used some of the 2013 movie English names and mixed them into the originals, because I wanted my characters to have a first and last name.

Sorry.

Then again… maybe not :P

I placed the fic in the Pacific Rim Synergy 'verse, so don't be confused that it isn't a retelling of the Pacific Rim movie. It's a continuity of it within an AU of my own creation.

So, this is a mix of both fandoms to make it work for PacRim.

Bear with me.

You don't need to read the five fics of the Synergy AU to read this one, but you can if you want to :)

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Herc Hansen, Marshall of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, didn't really have to look up from the stack of papers he was currently signing to know who had walked into his office. There had been no knock, and it wasn't required, but it was also hard to miss the thud of a cane hitting the metal floor.

"Dr. Gottlieb," he greeted half of his Lead Kaiju Science Team.

Hermann Gottlieb straightened a little, shifting his weight to rest on his good leg. He looked as pinched as always, lips a thin line as if Herc had called him away from a very important job to talk menial matters. Herc almost laughed to himself. Everything was a menial matter to Hermann as long as it didn't involve mathematic equations of the Anteverse or Jaeger tech.

But they had also known each other long enough that each man knew where the other came from. They had been through the Near-Apocalypse together. Gottlieb and Geiszler had saved their combined asses their own way, and they had stayed on even after the war was over.

"Take a seat, please."

Hermann seemed to just about refrain from huffing as he lowered himself into a chair. "What can I do for you, Marshall?"

"Hopefully a lot." Herc drummed his fingers on the folder on the desk. "What do you know about the Nibelung project?"

The reaction was almost comical as Gottlieb tried to hold back his surprise and failed on all fronts. His mouth opened slightly, then closed and the lips thinned even more. His eyes narrowed and there was a soft snort.

"Nibelung was Dr. Melody Miime's project. It's been a while since I heard anything. About ten years, I suppose. They kept a tight lid on development and research and after it failed, rumors remained. Nothing more."

"Where you ever involved enough to see anything of Nibelung?" Herc probed.

Hermann sighed, leaning back a little. He looked almost pensive. "Nibelung was perceived in the early stages of the Kaiju invasion, Marshall. It was an attempt to blow the Breach using technology way beyond us. Anteverse-perceived technology, based on alien matter. Back then we didn't even call it Anteverse just yet."

Herc gave him a raised eyebrow, urging him on.

"Oh well," Hermann muttered. "There aren't a lot of official files on this, right?"

"There are enough if you dig deep and know where the bodies are buried," Hansen replied calmly. "But I know you were partially involved or at least knew people who were. I wanted to hear it from you, not try to get behind blacked-out data."

Gottlieb's fingers closed tightly around the cane and he was biting his lower lip. Then, like he had won an internal argument, he nodded.

"At the beginning," he said, voice calm and almost like he was giving a lecture," there was nothing known about the other side of the Breach. It was a tear in the ground where something horrible came out to destroy us. Research teams spent months and then years working on finding a solution on how to collect data. As you know, nothing went through into the Breach. Only the other side had access to our world. What those teams gathered was little to nothing, mostly organic matter. Kaiju bodies, no tech. Dr. Miime and her team approached it a different way. They were one of the first to speculate that if the Breach was a door to another dimension, there would be matter, radiation, particles, that remained in our world and could be collected. They scanned and probed for that."

"And found something," Herc added with a nod. "That much I gathered from all the science talk."

Gottlieb wrinkled his nose a little. "They did more than just find things." Hermann grimaced as if he had bitten into something sour. "Matter leaked through the Breach with each Kaiju arrival. It clings to their bodies even after death, and Dr. Miime… well, she didn't send anything down there to get through but to collect what was pushed out of the other dimension."

Herc's brows rose. "Like siffoning out gold from sand?"

"In very crude words, yes. Aside from the organ harvesters, the project team was one of the first to arrive at every kill site. She started to apply the newly discovered particle matter to our technology. She speculated that if we managed to power a Jaeger with the what she called Dark Matter, we could go through the Breach. That's when I was called in. They asked for my input into the Dark Matter drives. I said they were insane, harvesting exotic particles from another universe and thinking they could control it."

Herc folded his hands in front of him on the desk. "Care to give me Dark Matter 101, Dr. Gottlieb?"

Hermann looked drawn between tickled and miffed. Dumbing down anything concerning science was underneath him, but on the other hand, he was the leading expert.

"Well, the visible universe **,** including Earth, the sun, other stars, and galaxies **,** is made of protons, neutrons, and electrons bundled together into atoms. In the 20th century a discovery was made that this ordinary, or baryonic, matter makes up less than five percent of the mass of the universe. The rest of the universe appears to be made of a substance called dark matter and a force that repels gravity known as dark energy."

Hermann waited for a moment, gauging Herc's reaction. The Marshall nodded for him to go on.

"Dark matter was and still is one of the more obscure fields of research. Since the dark matter couldn't be grasped and instruments back then couldn't detect it, and since it was apparently invisible to light, it wasn't pursued as deeply as other research. Scientists have a few ideas for what dark matter might be. One leading hypothesis is that dark matter consists of exotic particles that don't interact with normal matter or light but that still exert a gravitational pull. Several scientific groups, including one at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, were working to generate dark matter particles for study in the lab before the Breach happened."

"Did they?"

"I actually don't know, Marshall. With the Breach, things started to change. A different kind of research started. The particles detected on the Kaijus and those emitting from the Breach were different from anything we had known before."

"So, dark matter?"

Gottlieb shook his head. "No. Not in our classical sense. We still can't detect our dark matter, let along use it, though dark energy research speculated that the forces at play would be infinite. What Miime attempted to tame was Anteverse matter. A new kind of exotic. We could see it, read it, harness it. Dr. Miime called the engines she and Dr. Oyama developed Dark Matter Drives. Anteverse Engines might be the better description."

"What powered them then?"

"Very real alien energy and radiation," Gottlieb explained. "Dangerous, unexplored, likely to tear apart our world, but safety procedures were completely ignored." Hermann sounded disgusted and affronted in one.

"They worked."

Gottlieb huffed. "Luck, not science."

"So what happened?"

"They built four Jaegers. Oceanus Elite, Gaia Jove, Kaleido Proxy and Arcadia Zero. They called them Deathshadows. Three were destroyed, one survived," Gottlieb said with a sigh. "It was a damn loss of life! An insane project that shouldn't have been sanctioned!"

Yep, Herc held the same opinion, but the PPDC had been desperate back then. More than before, not as badly as when they had started building the useless Wall.

Nibelung hadn't been just another project. Miime had made sure that she was autonomous in the development of the new Jaeger. She had surrounded herself with people who came from a wildly different area of expertise each and while Herc sometimes thought of his Shatterdome core crew as a dysfunctional family of sorts, Nibelung topped that.

You had to be on the slightly more crazy side of science to think up what they had; and you had to be a lunatic to be the test pilot. Herc had been a test pilot, had driven all kinds of Jaeger generations. Others like him had died of radiation poisoning eating away at their skin, muscles and bones, destroying their cells. He had survived piloting a nuclear reactor on legs. He had survived Kaijus.

An alien matter drive? Herc thought he would have stepped into that Conn-Pod, too. It was the nature of pilots like him. Part of him actually itched right now. He wanted to take a look at that Jaeger, wanted to strap into the Conn-Pod and see what she could do. He also knew at least three or four more pilots who would want the same.

"The first Jaeger, Kaleido Proxy, blew up right away. No one knows the circumstances. I know I was never told." Gottlieb said, anger in his voice. "Gaia Jove didn't make it through the Breach. She and her crew were torn apart through the forces at play inside the Throat. The third, Oceanus Elite, was taken down by a Kaiju on the ocean floor. No survivors either. Number four…" Hermann looked pinched. "Number four survived, but was decommissioned. I wasn't part of the Nibelung project any more, but I heard that Arcadia Zero actually entered the Breach, descended into the Throat, made it out somewhere, but when the Deathshadow returned, one pilot was dead and gone. The other was gravely injured."

"Lost an eye," Herc nodded. "The other pilot was missing, even though the Conn-Pod had not been opened and had not been breached. Lots of blacked out paragraphs here. I'd say no one knows what happened."

"They never did. They didn't know what they were doing from the beginning and it didn't stop with the senseless death of so many good pilots," Hermann groused. "It shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have been sanctioned!"

Herc sighed. "You and me both know that a lot of things happened that the general public and even we don't know about. Nibelung was only one of those things."

Gottlieb looked darkly at him. "Insanity."

"So what we know," Herc continued, "is that Arcadia Zero was heavily damaged and barely operational, but nothing got in or out according to the data. There should be footage of the descent somewhere, but PPDC is rather… evasive. They have either nothing on those tapes or what's on them is something they don't want anyone to know."

Hermann's thin lips were a tight, white line. "Why are you asking about Nibelung, Marshall? It was discontinued, the final Deathshadow retired and probably locked down. I doubt they took it apart. They hardly understood what they cobbled together. Taking it apart would have it most likely blown up in their faces. Dark Matter is a dangerous material and alien on top of that!"

"Ever since the PPDC decided to keep Hong Kong running and to reopen the other Shatterdomes with a minimal crew, I've been getting lists of recommissioned Jaegers and crews. Just got this one."

He handed the pad to Hermann, who stared at it as if it held a very bad joke. He swiped his fingers over the screen, quickly scrolling through the electronic file.

"That's outrageous! It's… You can't… consider that… can you? Is it even operational?"

"I have to consider it, Dr. Gottlieb. Arcadia Zero is fully operational and has a complete crew of pilots and tech. According to the PPDC they'd been working on the Deathshadow Jaeger, but then all funds were pulled to build the Wall. They had a new pilot pair, but they were never sent out. Might have made a difference a year ago, or they would just have been another casualty."

"It's insane! We have no idea how the Dark Matter drive works!"

"We'll have enough time to learn from those working on it in the past decade."

Hermann's jaw muscles ticked. "It could blow up in our faces."

It hasn't so far. And they've been operating it for ten years."

"Insanity," the scientist muttered, sounding disgusted. "Miime was always prone to skirting along the edges of legal and safe. When she implanted the drive, she skipped ahead a few steps and went right off the deep end."

Herc smiled thinly. "Desperate times, Dr. Gottlieb. And I don't have to remind you of your colleague's attempts to Drift with a Kaiju."

Hermann looked even more disgusted, but he didn't argue.

"Is Miime coming, too?" he only asked.

"No one has seen her ever since Arcadia came back with one survivor. She's been declared MIA, probably dead."

Gottlieb huffed, hands still clenching around his cane.

"They kept Harlock. Gave him a new co-pilot. Insanity all around," he grumbled.

Herc had to agree. Harlock was severely traumatized, had lost an eye, was physically and mentally scarred. He had several notations in his file that read not unlike Chuck's mixed with Raleigh's. Psychologically damaged, physically handicapped, a man who had apparently been to the Anteverse and had his co-pilot ripped out of the Drift. Unlike Raleigh, though, he claimed he didn't remember.

Now he had a new co-pilot, someone who, according to the Psych Eval, gave him a stability that enabled him to function as a pilot and as a human being. Those two had been through countless simulation runs in the past two years and their performance was flawless.

"When?" Hermann now asked.

"Deployment papers have already gone through. I expect them to arrive in a day or two," Hansen answered. "Arcadia Zero will be flown in within in a week."

Hermann rose stiffly, leaning briefly on his cane until his bad leg stopped giving him trouble.

"I'd like you, as our Anteverse expert, to take a look at the Dark Matter drive, Dr. Gottlieb," Herc said calmly. "Give me your assessment. You'll have full access, no matter what the crew might say. Take Newt with you to keep them distracted," he added with a fine smile.

Gottlieb actually cracked a brief smile of his own. "I wouldn't want to inflict Dr. Geiszler on them."

Herc chuckled and watched the scientist limp out, then he leaned back in his chair.

The Arcadia was a wild card. An asset and also a possible nightmare to handle. She was operated by a seasoned pilot with amnesia concerning his last mission, very possible brain damage not unlike Raleigh Becket, and a young pilot who hadn't seen real action ever since being matched to Harlock.

Yeah, Herc decided, veritable powder keg.

He had to wait and see.

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When the Nibelung project had been put on hold due to the loss of three perfectly good Jaegers with their pilot pairs within a very short amount of time, the remaining Deathshadow had been mothballed.

Well, not literally.

Arcadia Zero had been shipped off to an undisclosed location, away from the regular Shatterdomes, to be maintained in a battle-ready condition in case the Academy could find a match for the sole survivor of a hair-raising mission.

For years Nibelung was a myth among the Academy recruits, talked about as a rumor or a legend, as a fantastic tale spread around mess hall tables. The pilots became daring heroes who had ventured into the Breach and remained there.

With each retelling the stories got more colorful, more fantastic. Some were outrageously funny, so far from the truth it wasn't even surreal any more. Even the scientists whispered about Nibelung, about experiments that went beyond human understanding, involved alien technology, and some claimed something other than the Kaiju had come through the Breach. Maybe the Deathshadows weren't even human-built.

Yes, there was a lot of dumb stuff floating around. The grain of truth was in there, but it was only a grain.

No one knew anyone associated with Nibelung, let alone ever trained with anyone who had been asked to try out as a pilot.

So it was just a tale.

The one person who had gone into the Breach long before Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori and had come back out alive wouldn't agree.

Harlock had paid a heavy price for his bravery, for trying to prevent the war from spreading and millions more dying. He had failed like all other Deathshadow crews, but he had made it back. Alive.

And he hadn't been seen by anyone ever since that day, when Arcadia Zero had resurfaced, barely functional, and Rescue had had a hard time getting the Jaeger, let alone the pilot, back to the Lima Shatterdome.

People would have remembered him had he walked into any Shatterdome or Academy facility. He was a very distinctive figure and his appearance had others do a double-take.

Harlock had become a ghost, a myth, had disappeared. Unlike other pilots who had lost so much, he hadn't holed up and started to slide into anonymity, or turned to alcohol to forget.

Nibelung had continued. Under the radar, but with PPDC funding and blessing. Without the head researcher, without the brain behind the Deathshadows, but with determination and grit.

Until now, no one had known.

Harlock gazed out the window, not really looking at the barren landscape around him. Mountains loomed up not far away, covered in thick blankets of snow and eyes, glaciers hanging on to the sides. He had seen nothing but this place for the past years and still, as familiar as it was, it wasn't home.

Nothing had been home since he had woken up and learned what had happened. Or what others told him had happened and might have happened.

Harlock himself remembered nothing.

It was like he hadn't been there, like some other person had been the pilot that day and that person had vanished inside his head, taking all the information with them. No matter the amount of therapy sessions and recall attempts, the past was locked away. That particular part of his past.

Rain was starting to fall onto the rocky ground, splattering heavily against the window panes and starting to obscure his view. Clouds kept rolling in over the mountains, a tidal wave that crashed down on the research station and washed away everything that hadn't been nailed down.

Weather was extremely unpredictable most of the time and a storm front could rush in within minutes. Heavy fog was normal sixty percent of the year, and temperatures were usually below freezing even before summer had officially ended. There were no four seasons, just two states of weather: clear, sunny and cold. Or rain with a heavy addition of fog and hail.

The darkness descending over the observatory spoke of hail for today.

Harlock listened to the first knocks of frozen particles against the metal and the heavy glass. Within minutes it became a loud staccato sound, drowning out everything else.

He turned away from the windows and walked back into the station. Protective panes started to descend and plunged the room into darkness as he left.

Tomorrow he would leave this place, head for Hong Kong. His first deployment to another location in a long time.

The Ranger in him itched to get back into his Jaeger, to take Arcadia Zero out and feel the Drift, feel the massive machine under his control, and just do what he had done so many times before. He hadn't been back to fight Kaiju for too long. He hadn't been allowed. He had been grounded and confined to this place.

Because the Deathshadows were top secret.

Because when they had finally found a co-pilot matching the stubborn captain, the PPDC had pulled all funds and truly mothballed them. Money had gone into building Walls that hadn't held up against the force of a Kaiju attack.

Because no one knew what might go catastrophically wrong with the Dark Matter drive if they went up against the Kaijus coming through.

Because Harlock was seen as damaged beyond repair and even with the only pilot crazy enough not to run from him, he might not be able to hold a steady neural handshake in a battle against the alien monsters.

Countless, endless simulations aside, he hadn't been sent out. They had recommissioned Gipsy Danger, had sent every functional Jaeger to Hong Kong.

Not Arcadia Zero.

She would have been ready. The pilots and crew had been ready.

But the call had never come because the PPDC was too cowardly to use a Jaeger powered by an alien energy source after the two developers had either died or disappeared.

Earth had nearly lost, the last desperate attempt to close the Breach for good almost failing and costing so many good pilots their lives, but Harlock had been forced to watch from the sidelines.

It had eaten away at him.

It had eaten away at his co-pilot, who had been the more outspoken one of them when it came to that decision.

His co-pilot had yelled and ranted at whoever he got his hands on, had sent off scathing mails to the PPDC brass, but they had been ignored. The one defense of human kind against the invasion had retreated, holed up, trusted in building stupid walls around the Pacific perimeter that had been completely useless against the brunt force of a Kaiju.

Arcadia had been sidelined.

Not trusted.

Weak.

Now they wanted him back.

After everything was over.

Harlock's lips were a thin line and he unconsciously curled his hands into fists. He forced himself to relax as he descended the stairs, the hammering sound of hail beating against the roof accompanying him.

The access door to the research station's main building was open and Yama was leaning against the door jamb, all lean, strong lines and ease. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest, eyes on Harlock.

Harlock shot him a quizzical look, but the younger man just smiled and fell in step beside him.

No words were exchanged.

Even without a single real battle outside the simulators, Yama had become quite adept at picking up Harlock's moods.

Two years knowing each other through the Drifts did that. Eighteen months of a deeper relationship added the rest. They trusted each other, needed each other, and they relied on each other.

"Wish they would let us pilot her to Hong Kong ourselves, not lug her to her new station like a piece of dead metal. It's demeaning. And we could use the time to really break her in. I'm sick and tired of simulations."

Harlock didn't answer; not that Yama had expected an answer.

"All those test runs and we never had her take a jog around the perimeter at all." The other pilot sighed. "Damn shame."

They passed a few people, all of them nodding a greeting, but Harlock ignored them. Part of him was excited to get back out into the field, to be on active duty, especially in Hong Kong, who had become the center of all activity concerning the newly formed protection detail of Earth. Another was tense, apprehensive and outright fighting the whole idea.

He wasn't surprised to find that Yama had led them back to their quarters and he was even less surprised to see the packed bags. Plural. His own was there as well, filled with the few personal belongings he had, together with his clothes, spare uniform and toiletries.

He raised his eyebrow.

Yama shrugged. "I was bored. Kept me busy. And it's not like there's a lot to pack anyway."

Right.

Harlock slipped out of his uniform jacked and draped it over the chair. Despite being grounded, he had never dressed in any other way than Arcadia's pilot. All black, some golden or red highlights along the edge. Yama plopped down in front of the computer and went through their inbox, deleting whatever he found was useless or uninteresting. Harlock watched him a wave of fondness stealing over him and the emotions had him twitch a smile.

"You want to head over to the mess and try their version of meatloaf and rice?" Yama asked, swiveling the chair to look at him.

"Not hungry."

"Sure you are. I'll bring you some back," the other decided as if he hadn't even heard his partner.

Harlock didn't even argue. It would be of no use.

"Have a look around if I missed anything. Kei wants to talk to you about Arcadia's transfer and Yattaran has been throwing a fit about something or other. You might want to show yourself to calm the guy down. I think he's making everyone crazy."

Harlock remained silent, but Yama wasn't deterred. He waved, assured that the They addressed him as 'Captain', his rank from his time in the military before the PPDC had grabbed him. Some referred to him like he was at the helm, steering the Jaeger like a pirate ship. They identified with the Jaeger, were proud to be part of the crew.

So Harlock did what he always did: be a quiet presence in the Jaeger Bay, watch the crew work, smile back when they nodded at him. If it helped morale, he did it.

And it had always helped morale.

tbc...

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To everyone who gave this fic a go and made it this far: thank you for giving me a chance :) I promise, I will finish it. I'm not known for starting to post and then never complete a fanfic I write.

So, thank you!


	2. Chapter 2

"Harlock. Heard that name before. Mostly when the rumors struck again that the PPDC was readying a secret strike weapon. Crazy son of a bitch and experimental tech." Raleigh frowned down at the file.

Herc chuckled. "No crazier than any of us, I think."

Chuck plucked the file out of his co-pilot's hands and read over the scarce information. His brow furrowed.

"Did you test-ride one of those Deathshadows?" he asked, looking at his father.

Hansen snorted. "Didn't even know they existed, kid. It was hush-hush and almost like a Black Ops operation. No one knew more than they needed to, maybe even less. Those files contain more blacked out paragraphs than information. Now that we won, the PPDC keeps digging up everything they hid in dark corners. And I get to deal with it."

"Like Harlock."

"He piloted into the Breach, came back without his co-pilot, lost an eye and had disappeared until now," Herc said, nodding. "Arcadia Zero was decommissioned. Officially at least. I know I'm missing a lot of stuff in these files and the PPDC is not very forthcoming, but I think he and his crew were sent into the fray a few times. Black Ops."

Raleigh expelled a breath. "And now he's gonna be stationed here? Why?"

"We only have two Jaegers at the moment. Epic North, Skyfall Prime. Hong Kong is also the only fully operational Shatterdome. It'll take years to get them all back to what the PPDC is planning. Arcadia Zero is ready for combat and more than capable of handling the science missions we're currently running. All the other Jaegers from Oblivion Bay are months away from having anyone pilot them."

"PPDC is really reactivating just about everyone. Even worse relics than Raleigh."

Becket elbowed him with a mock scowl.

Chuck smirked. "Just saying. And he can't be worse than your retired ass was back then."

"My retired ass saved yours, Hansen, so watch it."

"Luck."

"Has nothing to do with it," Raleigh shot back.

"Boys," Herc sighed, shaking his head in fond exasperation.

Chuck gave him the evil eye, then his face shifted from playful outrage to a more serious expression.

"I'm actually looking forward to seeing that mythical Jaeger with my own eyes. She must be something."

Raleigh nodded. "She most likely is. The only one of her kind."

"And the pilots."

Herc huffed a little laugh. "Harlock can't be worse than you, kid."

Chuck shot him a mock offended look. Raleigh just smirked with amusement.

"He's a myth," Becket finally said. "A living legend that no one has seen, really. Larger than life."

"Don't put him on a pedestal just yet. He's human like all of us." Herc took the file and nodded at his two pilot. "See you later."

Raleigh waved and Chuck flipped him a lazy salute.

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The Hong Kong Shatterdome had grown from a slightly desperate last stand into a busy front line research station within just a year after the Breach had been closed. Herc watched the proceedings with a slightly nostalgic smile, filled with pride and achievement, but also with all kinds of memories. As Marshall this was his to command. He had taken over from Stacker Pentecost and he had tried to honor his old friend in the way he was running things. Hong Kong had grown and was by now the nexus point of all Shatterdomes. Not all had been reactivated, but the ones running by now were important bases nonetheless.

Watching the proceedings as a new-arrival stepped off the helicopter, the seasonal rain drenching not only the landing platform but everything, Herc pushed away from the guard rail and walked down the last few steps to welcome his guest.

A silent shadow followed him, tall, blond, dressed in a Jaeger pilot's uniform. James Bond had taken on the role of his second in command without much fuss and while he was still an active pilot and frequently made Drops with his co-pilot, he was also the man to go to in case Herc wasn't around. Bond had slid into this slot like he belonged there.

Now he took in the new addition to their Shatterdome, cool eyes sizing up the figure and forming a first opinion not based on the bare facts on paper.

Captain Harlock, one half of the pilot team of the only still functional Deathshadow Jaeger, was a sight to behold. Tall and lithe, brown haired, brown eyed, and no bad on the eyes. His hair was longish, falling into his eyes and hiding the damage done to his right one. It was in disarray, but not unkempt or unwashed.

Herc almost laughed at the open stares the man was getting and he couldn't fault anyone for watching the tall, slender figure walk into the Shatterdome. The helicopter that had dropped him and three others off was already taking off again. In a few hours Arcadia Zero was expected to arrive.

"Looks like a bloody pirate," Bond murmured under his breath, more like a softly voiced thought than a real comment.

Yes, he did. Harlock was wearing a black leather uniform, consisting of a skin tight jacket and pants. Around his upper arms, dull golden metal gleamed, just like at his neck, where usually the helmet and the armor would attach. It looked almost like someone had taken a steampunk painting and made it into a real PPDC uniform. On his chest, center-piece, was a skull and crossed bones, stark white spray-painted against the black. Arcadia Zero's sigil. It was mirrored on the belt buckle clasp.

Harlock wore an ankle-length coat over his uniform. It was black on the outside, red on the inside, with a high neck. His damaged right eye was hidden underneath his long, non-regulation bangs, but even they couldn't cover the eyepatch completely. The most distinctive feature was a large scar running from his left cheek over his nose and disappearing under the eyepatch.

"Captain Harlock," Herc greeted him when the man stopped in front of him.

"Marshall Hansen." He inclined his head in acknowledgment.

There was hardly an inflection to Harlock's voice and he didn't appear to be overjoyed to be here. Herc met the hard eye, saw a lot he recognized reflected in there.

Harlock was damaged goods, like all pilots. None of them had come out of the decades of war intact. It showed in their behavior, in the way they clung to familiar people, how they pushed off potentially dangerous new acquaintances. Herc understood.

All of them understood.

There were a lot of remarks in his file about his self-destructive behavior after the loss of his co-pilot, the way he distanced himself from everyone. Psychologists had tried to get him to open up, but he hadn't let anyone closer than a loose friendship.

Harlock was a loner, only bound to his team through his co-pilot. He was a driven man, a man who did his job perfectly well, who strove to be the best, to protect what he loved, but at the end of the day he was alone.

Just another one of them, Herc mused. Raleigh and Chuck all over again. And Bond. He seemed to collect the broken ones.

"Welcome to Hong Kong." he glanced at the three additional newcomers behind Harlock. "All of you."

A young man, no older than his own son, shook Herc's hand, giving him a smile. He wore an almost similar outfit as Harlock, though the color scheme was less black than dark brown and golden, and the skull and crossbones were on the left side of his chest.

"Yama Logan," he introduced himself with a firm handshake.

"Ranger Logan. Good to have you here."

Herc looked at the other two.

A young woman, blonde, wearing a similar crossbones insignia on her black and red jacket. Kei Yuki, he recalled from the files. Main J-Tech Engineer for Arcadia Zero. The tall, massive guy on her left was Julian Yattaran, chief mechanic and aside from Kei one of the few people who probably understood at least a little of what Arcadia was made of.

Mako joined them, inclining her head politely. "Captain Harlock, Ranger Logan."

"Mako Mori," Herc introduced her. "Head of J-Tech and responsible for all Jaegers of the Shatterdome. She'll assign you your quarters and handle the arrival of Arcadia Zero."

"I appreciate it," Harlock answered evenly.

Bond remained silent, but he knew exactly who they were dealing with. The man always did. It was a knack he had. The briefing had been short, to the point, and there was little on file for the Arcadia's crew, but those past few minutes had given them a much better impression.

Kei was looking around as they walked deeper into the Shatterdome, her eyes coming to rest on Epic North. She looked impressed and slightly itchy to take a closer look.

"I wasn't aware of any new Jaegers getting commissioned."

"We got lucky."

"Hong Kong is important," Harlock said, his eye on the Jaeger, nodding. "It's the most important Shatterdome of all the reactivated ones. You have the best people here, Marshall Hansen, the latest Jaegers; you run operations concerning the further investigation of the Breach. Your K-scientists are unrivaled."

Herc twitched an eyebrow. Yes, he all that. He had worked to make his Shatterdome the best, to have the brightest minds and most talented pilots here. He glanced at Bond. The man simply raised an eyebrow, the glacially blue eyes neutral.

"It's why the PPDC found it important to reassign the last of Project Nibelung's creations to Hong Kong."

"After the war," Bond commented.

Harlock's smile was thin, almost cruel. "She wouldn't have been the asset you think she is."

Bond's expression was just as cold and calculating. "You had a co-pilot, Captain. Arcadia was active. It was all we needed."

Herc shot his second a sharp look, but Bond wasn't deterred.

"We would have fought," Harlock replied, voice under tight control, his tension bleeding through in every word. "The PPDC had sidelined us for too many years, was too careful, and they didn't even consider bringing Arcadia in as a last resort. It wasn't up to us. It never was at any given time."

Herc studied the younger man, saw a pain he had only ever seen in Raleigh when the American pilot talked about Yancy. The few times he actually had.

Harlock was no different from every other pilot he had ever seen in this war. Heck, he wasn't so different from Herc himself. Loss was part of this war. Personal loss weighed even more on one's soul. Seeing your co-pilot die, be it through radiation poisoning or a Kaiju attack, it stuck with the survivor. The teams were tight-knit, trusted each other implicitly, had shared more than any close friends would ever be able to do, and losing that left a gaping hole behind, no matter who tried to replace that person.

Bond didn't reply, but there was a fine smile on his lips that showed that he was satisfied with that answer, had actually wanted something like that.

Finally Hansen nodded his understanding. "Get settled," he ordered. "Get to know the others. We'll check your Jaeger when she gets here and you'll be scheduled for test runs accordingly."

"Yes, sir," Yama replied, who had been quietly watching the exchange with sharp eyes and a tense set of his shoulders. "Can't wait to get into the Conn-Pod."

Yep, typical pilot.

Herc watched them go, led by Mako who would give them the brief tour.

Bond fell in step beside the Marshall as Hansen headed toward his office.

YHYHYHYHYHYHHYHYHYHYH

"What do you think?"

Bond leaned back against the window, all lean lines and contained strength, his lips pursed thoughtfully. "You'll have your hands full."

"Yeah, figured that. He's quite something."

"And still valuable enough for the PPDC to think you might need him and his Jaeger."

"If it doesn't blow us all sky high the moment they fire her up."

Bond shrugged one shoulder. "Possible but doubtful. It's been ten years since they first activated that engine and while Arcadia has been mothballed for a while, she is operational. Q would be all over that Drive if he was here."

"Speaking of which… you and him: vacation. Now. Understood?"

"Yessir."

"Good. I don't want to see either of you here unless there is a Kaiju crawling out of the ocean. A Dark Matter Drive is no excuse for your co-pilot to show his face."

Bond chuckled.

"Go and enjoy yourselves. One month. No less."

"I heard you the first twenty times, Herc."

Hansen grimaced. "Because I know you, Bond. I expect you to also understand me, not just hear me."

Bond gave him a lazy salute. "I always understand, Marshall. Have fun breaking in the new team, unless they break the Shatterdome first."

"Out," Herc just snarled.

YHYHYHYHYHYHHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHHYHYHYHYH

"Holy crap!"

Yama walked into the quarters assigned to them and turned a full 360 degrees. His eyes were wide and he looked like a little kid.

"These are our quarters?" he asked, looking at Mako like she had made a mistake.

She inclined her head, a fine smile on her lips. "They are."

"You could fit three whole Jaeger teams in here and still have room!"

"These are the quarters that were assigned to families before the Shatterdomes started to close down and personnel had been reduced. All pilot teams have been placed on this floor, as well as Doctors Gottlieb and Geiszler."

"This is so cool," Yama whispered.

Harlock was his silent, looming self. His eye roamed over the neutrally painted and furnished quarters. It consisted of a bedroom that was separate from a living room. Yama prowled into the bedroom, delighted, then back out again to check the bathroom.

"These are your log-ins for the Shatterdome's network," Mako said and handed a slim folder to Harlock.

He opened it and found their official ID cards, the layout of the Shatterdome printed out and the required paperwork to get them settled with tablets and network access.

"I will take care of Arcadia Zero's arrival. The Bay is ready and your crew will receive whatever they need. Quarters have been commissioned to them as well."

"Thank you."

She bowed her head. "You are very welcome, Captain. Should you require any assistance, let me know."

"You are the Chief J-Tech Engineer," he remarked, raising his eyebrow.

Mako's smile remained polite and amusement was in her eyes. "Commander Bond, Marshall Hansen's second in command, is about to go on leave. I fill in when that happens. Please don't hesitate to contact me."

Harlock returned the gesture, bowing his head as a thank you. "Miss Mori."

"Captain Harlock, Ranger Logan." She turned and left the quarters.

"Wow!" Yama breathed again. "This is really something!"

Harlock lifted a corner of his mouth in amusement, getting a blindingly happy smile from his partner in return.

"Let's unpack and then I want a shower," Yama proclaimed. "And I heard they have a pool, too. How about we take a tour of the place?"

"Did you bring your camera?" Harlock teased.

Yama chuckled. "C'mon, tall, dark and handsome. This is our new base now. We should know where we are. The team's coming in soon and so is Arcadia. And I'm hungry."

"You always are." Harlock took his bag. "Now take your shower."

"Yes, Captain."

Yama gave a sloppy salute and disappeared in the bathroom. Harlock shook his head and tossed the bag onto the bed. While his co-pilot showered, he would take a look around the network.

Kei and Yattaran would take care of arranging the Jaeger Bay for Arcadia and look into the crew quarters. He had faith in them, as he always had.

tbc...


	3. Chapter 3

Arcadia Zero was… different. She had come in by helicopter, six of them carrying the gigantic machine across the ocean. Raleigh stood on the walkway, looking at the newest addition to their Bay, running an experienced eye over the Jaeger. She wasn't as tall as Epic or Skyfall, but not small either. Her primary color was black. A lot of black. There was a little red, a streak of gold, but it was almost overshadowed by the darker color.

On her chest was a massive crossbones logo. It wasn't just painted on either. It was stylized in metal. The Conn-Pod had been created to look like a skull, completing the picture of a freaky version of a pirate ship on legs. He almost expected her to fly the Jolly Roger.

Inside the Jaeger, the Deathshadow class, as people called it, resided a power core that no one had ever seen before, nor could understand. Dark Matter. Anteverse matter.

"She's something," Chuck remarked thoughtfully. "Different. Kinda like the steampunk version of a Jaeger. And still one of ours."

Raleigh raised his eyebrows. "Steampunk."

Chuck shrugged. "I read."

He snorted.

"Hey!" the Australian said, looking offended.

"You read," Raleigh agreed. "Graphic novels and Jaeger tech magazines."

"Better than old, dusty tomes by obscure writers. Or heartbreak romance novels."

Raleigh rolled his eyes.

"I've seen your secret little library."

"It's not a secret and they aren't mine. I loan them from Hermann."

"Who is a closet romantic."

Both men looked at each other, then laughed. Hermann Gottlieb loved paper books and abhorred the digital version. He read everything, from great, long-dead authors to gas station harlequin novels. Not that he would ever be caught with one of those in public. Raleigh loved to read paper editions, so he frequently swung by the lab and got himself new material.

Chuck looked back at their new-arrival. "I never knew about the Deathshadows, y'know. And I knew about every Jaeger they ever built."

"Jaeger groupie," Raleigh teased.

His co-pilot bumped their shoulders together. "Only for Gipsy."

"Can I get that in writing?"

"Not on your life."

"I always knew you were a closet fan."

"Shuddup, Rah-leigh."

"They hid that Jaeger for a reason," Becket remarked. "Even when we had our last stand."

"'Cause she might have blown up going close or into the Breach?"

"Or the pilot might have."

Chuck's gaze went back to the black Jaeger. "Experimental alien matter drive," he mused. "Crazy. Bloody crazy."

"It worked and still does."

"They lost the other three. Damn shame. You think that Harlock guy is able to go down again?"

"I know I was," Raleigh remarked softly.

Chuck leaned close again, their fingers mingling as their sides touched.

"It's tough and maybe a lot tougher for him. Whatever happened to him on the other side… I can't compare my minutes to his. "

Chuck chewed on his lower lip. Both of them, Chuck Hansen and Raleigh Becket, had lost nearly everyone who had mattered to them. Chuck's mother had died in a Kaiju attack. His uncle was a persona non grata and probably dead, too. He only had his father left. Raleigh's brother had been killed, his mother had died of cancer, his father had run out on his family and was probably dead.

Chuck himself had nearly died.

And they had lost so many friends and comrades. Especially in the last few days before the Near-Apocalypse.

"Been talking to the new guy yet?" he finally asked.

"He's not really the talking type. Ever since Arcadia got here, he and his co-pilot have been with their crew, who is going over every screw and bolt. Their team's as tight-knit as expected and really protective of their Jaeger. They remind me of the Russians. Or you Aussies."

Hansen grinned. "Our crew now. They wouldn't let anyone else touch Epic unless the Marshall ordered them to."

Epic's crew was a mixture of the late Striker Eureka's and some from the other past Jaegers. Skyfall Prime had a wild mix of technicians and mechanics that had been reassigned from Gipsy Danger and Crimson Typhoon. Cherno Alpha's crew had mostly resigned or disappeared after the end of the war.

They watched in silence as people moved down below, as cranes swung back and forth, as welders worked on their stations.

"You think he really went into the Anteverse? Like you did?"

Raleigh shrugged one shoulder. He had been there. Briefly. He could still recall the alien world, the nightmarish constellations, the foreign colors. He had seen things move and crawl, had looked into eyes that weren't eyes, and he had blown up a planet, maybe even a solar system.

"They say he did."

"And that he was there longer than just a few minutes. The rumors are still flying wildly. The guy's a myth."

"There's always a core of truth to any myth."

"He sure holds up to the image. Eyepatch and all." Chuck looked a little amused. "The pirate captain and his crew."

"Looking forward to seeing them work together, Drop her for the first time. It'll be interesting."

"The experienced old dog and the rookie? Remind you of someone?"

Raleigh didn't answer, just gave Chuck a little shove. The Australian laughed and pushed away from the rail guarding the observation platform.

"C'mon. We got a Kwoon date. Wouldn't want to be late for that."

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

He knew he wasn't alone.

Pilots were never alone in the Drift, but Harlock hadn't been on his own ever since that fateful day when he had gone into the Breach. Him and Toshiro. Arcadia Zero had been the last surviving Deathshadow Jaeger and both pilots had been only ones to go into the Throat and make it out on the other side.

It had been seconds.

Minutes.

Then years.

And then a lifetime.

Harlock had no idea how long he had spent in what was now called the Anteverse, but he knew it had been longer than the ten minutes that had been clocked for them.

For him.

Because when he had come out, bleeding, barely conscious of the world around him, Arcadia Zero close to failing on him, Toshiro had been gone.

No one knew or understood. Harlock had little to no recollection of getting his co-pilot ripped out of the Drift. He actually couldn't remember anything after launching from the Shatterdome and heading for the Breach. Cameras had failed after they had dived into the glowing light. Most of Arcadia's data had been erased because circuits had fried and melted from the overload.

He only remembered the searing pain in his head. The blood running down his face. And then nothingness.

He had come to in a medical wing, missing an eye, a scar across his face, and the knowledge that Toshiro was no more. He ha faced the things on the other side of the Breach, had gone where no other Jaeger had ever managed to set foot, and he hadn't been able to blow the Throat, let alone close the Breach.

It had been a failure.

Even with the Dark Matter drive, they hadn't managed a single victory.

Or had they?

He couldn't remember. Not since then, never again.

Arcadia Zero had remained as part of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps' defense, her crew diligently repairing her, maintaining the shell as the Dark Matter drive thrummed in her middle. It didn't need repairs. It didn't need parts. It was a ball of energy that just… was.

No engineer or mechanic understood how it worked. No one really wanted to get too close to take a deeper look, to maybe take apart the drive's case and poke at what pulsed underneath. Toshiro had been the one to interface the alien particle engine with the human-built Jaeger. Dr. Miime had been the one to tame the energies to make them usable. Even stepping into Toshiro's head throughout the Drift hadn't enable Harlock to truly grasp what the Dark Matter was.

But he could feel it in his bones, like a living thing, and it permeated his every cell. Ever since coming back, the sensation was there.

He had never talked about this with anyone but Miime. She had simply nodded, smiling briefly, and made notes.

Harlock hadn't talked to her since that day of the debriefing years ago.

A week after their last conversation, when she had listened to him describing what he could sense, what it made him feel like, she had vanished. She hadn't been with the PPDC ever since. No one knew where she had disappeared to, whether she was still alive.

"Deep thoughts?"

He looked up, his eye narrowing slightly as Yama walked into their quarters.

His co-pilot.

The only one to stay longer than one or maybe two Drifts ever since Toshiro. Harlock had gone through plenty of them, all dismissed after either the Kwoon or the Drifts.

The only one who had come close to a fit had been Emeraldas Queen. She had been fierce, a soldier through and through, matching him close to perfectly. Queen had been top of her class at the Academy and she had been chosen to test with Harlock in a simulated Drop.

The Kwoon session had been intense and quite interesting. Emeraldas was good, almost perfect, and she had matched him close to ninety percent. It was a satisfactory result for the Academy teachers. Out of all candidates, Queen had been the best choice.

She had died en route to the Shatterdome when a Kaiju had breached the Wall and destroyed half the city.

It had been a terrible loss, a shock to the system.

Now there was Yama. Yama, who had been there for two years, at his side, unswayed and absolutely loyal. Who didn't take no for an answer and who matched Harlock in a way that not even Emeraldas had managed.

They were drift compatible.

Had been from the moment they had met, even without the neural connection confirming the fact.

Yama was like a younger copy of him, but still different. There was eagerness, sure, but also an assuredness well beyond his twenty years. Physically he was in his prime and mentally, Yama was a tight ball of control, of steel and fire.

Harlock had never told anyone, but the moment he had touched that mind, his own had started to relax just a fraction. Yama didn't need the older and more experienced pilot as a support; he held his own and he held Harlock in turn.

"You know, they make a decent mac'n cheese here," Yama went on, slipping out of his flight jacket. "Tastes almost like real cheese. Rumor has it they even have real meat, not some algae-seaweed make-believe stuff. And they're not rationing."

He perched on the desk where Harlock had been skimming files on the computer. With access to the Shatterdome had come access to more information than what the PPDC had allowed to leak through to the media. Harlock had caught up on the complexities of Operation Pitfall, the double and triple event, the final showdown, and Striker Eureka's sacrifice, that had killed Stacker Pentecost, then acting Marshall of Hong Kong.

"You're still on that?"

"It's important," he rumbled.

To get to know the others, especially the two pilot teams.

Like Chuck Hansen and Raleigh Becket. The son of the new Marshall, his former co-pilot – parent-child pilot pairs were extremely rare and the Hansens had shown more compatibility than anyone would have thought possible. Chuck had been nearly killed in that final assault on the Breach. Now Hercules Hansen was the acting Marshall after Pentecost had died in the nuclear explosion and his son had become the pilot of the newly commissioned Epic North, together with Raleigh Becket.

Becket… who had been the one to go through the Throat, into the Anteverse, and blow up the whole damn thing. He had come out alive with a few scars to show. His past was an interesting one, too, and Harlock had already decided he needed to get to know the man.

Skyfall Prime's crew was currently on leave, not expected back for a month. One of her pilots was Marshall Hansen's second. James Bond. The man who had silently watched the whole welcoming with alert eyes, assessing the new-arrivals and making Harlock feel on edge the whole time. The other was Vancouver's Shatterdome's former quartermaster, simply called Q, though he had a perfectly given name.

Yama glanced at the file currently on display, then shrugged. Harlock knew his partner, so he knew Yama had read everything, too. He simply didn't brood over it.

"Kei mentioned we can expect Arcadia to be ready for a test run in a day or two. She and Yattaran have been all over the Bay, have interrogated every worker they came across, staked a claim, amassed a small fortune in replacement parts, and I think Yattaran is contemplating hitting the black market in Hong Kong for stuff he hasn't been able to find so far.

Harlock gave a little snort of laughter. Of course he would. And he would drag Kei along. The two of them, despite their differences, were a formidable team and wouldn't stop until they had what they needed for their Jaeger.

"We might want to hit the Kwoon, though," Yama suggested.

Harlock raised his eyebrow.

"Hey, I've been sitting on my ass for weeks after we got our papers!" the younger man protested. "I'm getting rusty."

"Hardly."

"Hiking around the mountain isn't driving a Jaeger and you know it. You owe me a real run."

He rose, curling his lips into a half smirk. "Do I?"

Yama copied the gesture. He was half a head smaller than his co-pilot, his hair just as longish and wild, though a lighter brown, and he matched Harlock's stubbornness, though never the broodiness, as he claimed.

"You want to embarrass us in front of the new boss the first time we Drift?" he challenged. "I'm not going to accidentally blow up anything or step on something we shouldn't, just because we're out of shape."

The younger pilot was hardly out of shape, either physical or mentally. Harlock had been in over eighty simulations with him and never, in any one of them, had Yama so much as faltered.

They worked insanely smoothly together. It was like he had never Drifted with anyone but Yama. Harlock had been floored by the first Drift, the strength and the way he felt complete. Yama had fit and he had matched, and he understood Arcadia like he had been born to be her pilot. Handling the Dark Matter drive was unlike any other engine. It seemed alive, like a sleeping consciousness, and Yama had been an instant natural.

"It would be hard to do that," Harlock said, voice low, almost rough.

If someone would fail, it might be Harlock himself. He carried a lot of baggage. He had no idea what a real run would trigger.

Yama smiled roguishly, then closed the gap between them. One hand curled around Harlock's neck, the other slid over his hip, and then his lips were on Harlock's.

It was a chaste kiss, close-mouthed, gentle, and still it showed more than any open-mouthed devouring kiss would have.

Toshiro had been like a brother to him; family. Yama… had become so much more so fast. His barriers had crashed down around Yama Logan. Both knew Harlock, but not the same man. Where Toshiro had shared Drift memories from before the fateful day, Yama had witnessed it all to various degrees of intensity and clarity.

Harlock held him close, buried his head into the soft, brown strands. Strong hands carded through Harlock's darker hair, skipping over the eyepatch, massaging his scalp.

"We could also retire," Yama murmured. "Get some rest. And then you can kick my ass tomorrow."

Harlock chuckled, raising his head. "I always kick your ass."

"Because you're a freak. No one can predict your next move."

"You can. You match me. We're compatible."

"Yep. Don't you ever forget that, Harlock." Yama smiled, one hand still buried in his hair. "Our first real live Drift coming up. Been waiting for a long time for that."

"It's not that different," Harlock replied with an amused note to his voice.

"Easy for you to say. I've never been in a Jaeger I could actually move. It's not a simulation any more."

"No."

"More intense."

Harlock huffed a little laugh. "Kwoon it is then. That'll whip you into shape."

"Show me tomorrow." Yama's eyes glowed with a teasing light. He glanced at the bed. "It's late and we both need sleep."

Harlock knew that. He also knew that Yama understood that he rarely slept more than four to six hours. Part of the Dark Matter's charm, coupled with his foggy dreams that were neither nightmares nor good experiences.

Miime had explained it to him once. It had taken months for him to truly understand the implications, that the Dark Matter in his very body had changed his sleep cycle, his needs, everything. He had been tainted by it and Harlock had no idea what would become of him in the next decade to come.

His visit to the other dimension had cemented the fact that Dark Matter was part of his life now, that his partial amnesia would always be that hole in his mind, the neural damage and the radiation playing havoc with his memory.

Yama slipped out of his shirt and pants, drawing Harlock's thoughts from the dark, broody side to the here and now. To the slender man who was his co-pilot and match. He watched the play of muscle, felt the want to touch this, to curl up around the warmth and just be himself for a while.

Harlock undid the clasps of his boots, then peeled off his own jacket and shirt. Unlike Yama's skin, his own was criss-crossed with electrical burn scars from where the Drivesuit had left a lasting reminder. No one beside the medics and Yama ever got to see them, except for the one disfiguring his face. That hadn't been an electrical burn. It had been a deep cut that had cost him his eye and bisected his face almost horizontally. It had knitted jaggedly together, large and unsightly. Yama claimed he looked like a real buccaneer from the old times.

He was already in bed, watching him expectantly, and when Harlock joined him, his co-pilot pulled him close. It was like a switch had been flipped and Harlock's body relaxed into the familiar embrace. He almost sighed.

Yama smiled, fingers running over smooth skin that was interrupted by the scars. He followed those lines like he was drawing an image, exploring known and very familiar terrain.

Harlock closed his eye and let himself sink into the soft eddies of Dark Matter and Ghost Drifts. The caresses helped. Where they had made him tense and ready to run the first few times, the fingers were now anchoring him to reality, brought home how complete things finally were.

Soon they would be piloting Arcadia together for the first time; live trial, not a simulation. In front of the whole Shatterdome that would be watching them with eagle eyes.

And yes, a part of him was looking forward to that.

Another part was terrified of failing when push came to shove, when he was out of the comfort zone of a controlled Drift.

He silenced that part forcefully.

If he failed this final test, Harlock would deal with the consequences. Marshall Hansen wouldn't accept Harlock failing the Pons and still staying on as Arcadia's pilot.

No matter his reputation.

No matter at all.

"Relax," Yama murmured. "It'll be fine. We'll be alright."

 _Wishful thinking_ , Harlock thought bitterly.

tbc...


	4. Chapter 4

When Yama Logan had joined the Pan Pacific Defense Corps at the early age of sixteen he had done so in the belief that he and his older brother Ezra would do great things together, that they would drive Jaegers and kill Kaijus. Ezra was five years Yama's senior, had walked through the Academy with apparent ease, and he had gone on to become a successful Jaeger pilot with a kill and an assisted kill under his belt by the time Yama graduated.

Yama had looked up to him. He had wanted to be like him. He had wanted to make Ezra proud. Especially after their parents' divorce and their father's death when he had gotten killed in a mass panic throughout a Kaiju attack.

Fate had decided otherwise.

Yes, he had gone to the Academy, had aced the courses, had been one of the best Rangers in training, and Ezra had been proud of him at the graduation party. He had already been a pilot for three years and Yama had been itching to step into those shoes.

A month after his graduation Ezra was confined to a wheelchair, paralyzed from a Kaiju attack, bitter and hateful that Nami, his co-pilot, had been killed and he would have to go on like that; alone. Nami and he had been engaged at the time, a month away from a wedding.

Yama and Ezra had started to fight on an almost daily basis until Yama had packed his things and left, never looking back.

Yes, the psychologists and doctors had told him that the anger was part of Ezra's healing, that the loss sat deep, that it was to be expected, that survivor's guilt was always ten times worse with pilot pairs. But Ezra hadn't given his younger brother a chance.

Yama had ended up with the Nibelung project through sheer chance and luck, recruited to take the place of Harlock's deceased co-pilot, and back then it had been the best offer he could think of.

Today he would think it had been Fate.

Even if the Dark Matter drive had scared him shitless. He had been briefed quite thoroughly and he had been told more than a few times that no one knew what the alien particles would do to a human body throughout repeated exposure.

No one was closer to the drive than the two pilots. No one was exposed to the radiation longer than them.

Yama had accepted it all. He wanted to get into a Jaeger and kick Kaiju butt.

Desperate times, he had always thought.

The scientists had reassured him that unlike the radiation from the nuclear drives, Dark Matter wasn't going to cause cancer or kill him. How they would know that was beyond Yama.

And then there was Captain Harlock.

Older than Yama by ten years.

Recruited right out of the Academy at the age of eighteen.

One of eight men and women to pilot a Deathshadow, but the only one still alive today.

A taciturn, too stoic, too guarded and rather damaged Ranger who had pushed at Yama to leave every step of the way.

The first time they had met, Harlock had been just like he was now: tall, lean-limbed, dark and handsome, wearing the black Arcadia Zero uniform with the skull and crossbones, and the eyepatch. Yama had felt like meeting some sort of icon, that mysterious man who had gone into another universe and come back with localized amnesia. He was imposing, he was awe-inspiring, but he was also distant and weirdly passive-aggressive in his whole behavior toward the aspiring former trainee. He hadn't shaken Yama's hand, hadn't even lost more than a word, and simply turned around with his long duster swooshing dramatically behind him.

Leaving Yama slightly dumbfounded.

Yeah, he was an impressive man. And scary as hell. The scar and eyepatch only added to that.

But Yama was stubborn.

And rebellious.

And he didn't like being told that he couldn't do something.

He also didn't give a flying fuck about what rumors circulated around Harlock. Sure, the man was melancholy, somber, always distanced, and he barely talked more than necessary, if at all. He kept his thoughts to himself.

But he was human and he wanted to fight again; Yama had seen it in his eye.

So it had been up to Yama to find out what the man was made of, what made him tick. He had inevitably come across who he was replacing: Tochiro Oyama.

Not just any kind of pilot. He had been the genius who had built the Deathshadows, who had implemented the Dark Matter drive together with Dr. Miime, and he had been a constant driving force in Harlock's life. Both men had shared a deep friendship, had been Drift compatible, and his death had changed Harlock. There were rumors about Tochiro's ghost inhabiting the Arcadia, watching Harlock, watching them all, and protecting them.

Yama didn't dismiss that idea outright. Drift technology was still rather unexplored and no one knew what had happened to Tochiro. So many, just maybe, there was a ghost. Or it was just an echo.

No matter what, nothing could drive him away.

He wanted this.

He would fight for it.

Their Kwoon sessions spoke of their matching personalities, despite outside appearances and behavior. They reached compatibility like no other co-pilot choice for Harlock had ever managed.

Yama could feel himself falling in sync with the more experienced pilot, but he didn't submit in any way. They were on the same basic level. They were evenly matched and equals.

Their first Drift would be either a complete catastrophe or the beginning of a good partnership.

YHYHYHYHYH

The Drift was like a mind meld, two individuals becoming one. Harlock would know everything about Yama. Every last detail. He would have his memories, the emotions, the instincts.

Drifting allowed them to act as one and control the very movement of the Jaeger itself, one pilot controlling the right hemisphere, the other the left hemisphere. They would have one mind, one thought, one instinct.

Yama had been through countless simulations, had felt different minds, though never as deeply as with a true match. He knew what to do, what not to do. He knew the pre-Drop procedures, he knew Jaegers, he knew the Conn-Pod mechanisms. He was a techie and he was a pilot. Nothing about this was new to him, not even Dropping with an older, more experienced pilot. His instructors had all been older.

"Don't chase the rabbit," Harlock growled as he let the technicians hook him up to the Conn-Pod.

"It's not my first time," Yama shot back.

It got him a cold look, the one good eye holding no emotions, good or bad.

Harlock didn't want him, but he followed orders. He did accept the fact that Yama Logan was his best Kwoon match in ages, that they would most likely hold a stable Neural Handshake, but he didn't want it.

During the Drift, pilots would lapse into silence. Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers or R.A.B.I.T. simply meant that one of the pilots latched onto a memory, focusing on it completely, chasing it down. He would freeze in that moment. The emotions from the memory typically translated into actions for the Jaeger, depending on the hemisphere the pilot was calibrated to.

Yama wouldn't make such a novice mistake.

"Pons is ready. Prepare for neural handshake," their chief LOCCENT officer announced.

Well, here they went.

There was nothing more intimate than this neural bridge. There was no hiding, no lies, nothing.

And there was no shame.

Everything was there for the other half to see.

It was literally a peek into someone else's head, someone else's soul. With all the consequences, good or bad.

YHYHYHYHYH

Their first Drift had been close to perfect right from the start, synchronization happening quickly and smoothly. Yama clicked into place without much fuss, adjusting to the second mind like he had done in trainings before.

The neural handshake had held.

Yama had felt Harlock's surprise, and he knew the whole LOCCENT had been holding their combined breaths.

They had been great together.

It had been the strongest connection for Harlock ever since Toshiro. Yama had seen fleeting images of the two men, the two best friends who had come from such opposite backgrounds. He had seen Toshiro, the genius scientists, and Harlock, the military-trained Ranger. Young and full of ideals. He had felt he joy and the loss. He had seen the pain.

And he had let his own mind open for Harlock, let him see his joy, his loss, his conviction that they could make a difference together. He let him into the depth of his soul, share the grief over his parents, then Nami, and finally Ezra.

YHYHYHYHYH

When they stepped out of the Conn-Pod, Harlock wordlessly disappeared. Even without his duster he gave a good impression of a cape billowing behind him.

Yama remained behind, still a little overwhelmed, his mind racing with what he had seen of the other pilot.

As a Ranger trainee he had Drifted a few times, usually with a seasoned instructor, but they had been in complete control of the Drift, keeping him out of the depths of their own minds and guiding him through the motions.

Harlock had been almost wide open, close to desperate, seeking an anchor and finding it immediately in Yama.

It was humbling.

An honor.

Shocking, really.

And Yama wanted to do it again.

Harlock… not so much. The man had simply left, face hard and unreadable.

YHYHYHYHYH

But the decision stood: Yama Logan would be the new co-pilot for Arcadia Zero.

Even if Harlock still didn't want him.

They were Drift compatible.

YHYHYHYHYH

After the second Drift Yama had started to get an idea of who and what Harlock was, what he had suffered through, even though the man had no memories of what had happened inside the Breach.

It was jarring to reach that point in his mind, like something had been torn apart and then burned out of him, a gaping hole, a foggy place to be, and not even a shred of memory. No fragments to work with; just nothingness.

He started to understand and he started to see the man in another light.

Harlock was tenacious, was like a dog with a bone if he wanted something. He was gentle, sometimes very intense, at rare times even funny. He did enjoy life, wasn't someone pondering the abyss and the darkness, wanting it to end because of what had happened to him. The pain of loss and injury was a memory he hadn't lost, but it had strengthened him, had changed him, had made him the man he was today.

And he could smile. With happiness.

Yama had seen the evidence, had been proven right in his suspicions that Captain Harlock wasn't a total loss emotionally.

And Yama was getting somewhere.

YHYHYHYHYH

After the third Drift things started to change.

Harlock didn't wordlessly leave the Conn-Pod like an avenging angel and disappear into the maze of the research facility. He waited for Yama to be disconnected from the feedback cradle. Yama shot him a curious look, but he didn't comment on the sudden change. He walked into the locker room and Harlock was at his side. Matching his strides, calm, collected, in charge.

There had been this brief moment when they had stepped out of the Conn-Pod, when Yama had wondered where the man would disappear to, when Harlock had looked at him. Differently. With a softness to the usual edge, with a kind of… empathy. It had struck the younger man like not even the Drift's memories ever had.

Yes, Harlock was human, no matter how unapproachable and distant he wanted to be.

When Yama went for a cup of coffee and whatever they had for his sweet tooth, Harlock accompanied him. No questions asked, no comments at all. He was simply there, at his side, watching, studying Yama with a hooded eye, and he sat across from him in the mess hall.

Drinking from a bottle of light beer.

It had been absolutely weird.

But in a way it was really, really nice, too.

YHYHYHYHYH

After the fourth trial run, Yama felt Harlock's emotions even later on, when he was in bed, reading. The Ghosts. Leftover emotions and fragments of memories that weren't his, that tickled his own senses and connected him to his co-pilot even after the Drift had been severed.

The Ghosts had him outside Harlock's quarters – they didn't share a room – and the other man didn't look too surprised.

"You felt them longer," Yama accused when he saw the knowing expression.

Harlock said nothing, but there was a gleam in his eye, something intense, almost feverish.

"How about telling me?"

"You figured it out." His voice, that low rumble. Tinged with amusement.

"You could have helped."

It got him a shrug.

That evening they sat together, saying few words but sharing so much more. When Yama woke, he was curled around the taller pilot and he felt so much at ease like he hadn't in a while.

YHYHYHYHYH

It was when they fell together in a different way for the first time and Yama hadn't regretted a single day since then.

Sure, there had been the awkward moment after, when both men had looked at each other, out of breath, high on endorphins and whatnot, but there had been no regret. Harlock had seemed so much more human, more vulnerable and open, unlike anything the Drift could give them.

Whatever Harlock projected for the outside to see, he was a different man. Yama had seen it in the Drifts, had gotten to know him, had been through ups and downs with his partner. Nothing could get him away from Harlock and Arcadia Zero.

"No regrets?" the older pilot asked, voice rough and a little raw.

"No regrets," Yama answered with a slow, satisfied smile. "You?"

The smile was answer enough.

Open. Happy.

YHYHYHYHYH

They were never deployed, even though the last days of Earth were on the horizon. The PPDC insisted the Walls were enough to keep the cities safe from Kaiju attacks, which Harlock scoffed at. Yama angrily followed the news.

Shatterdomes were closed, the surviving Jaegers sent to Hong Kong for one final strike; Operation Pitfall.

Not Arcadia.

Kei, Yattaran, and all the others loudly complained about being benched, having to sit back and watch the world end while Arcadia was perfectly capable of making a difference.

Harlock just watched, face unreadable, as Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha were taken down by a double event; two Kaijus coming through.

They heard of the rest when everything was over, when too many lives had been lost, all Jaegers destroyed but one. The triple event, the nuclear missile, the closure of the Breach through more luck than anything else.

It was the night Harlock retreated into an abandoned lab room, a bottle of bourbon his only companion. Yama joined him an hour later, both men sitting together, silence between them, sharing the bottle.

The world was celebrating, but two Jaeger pilots and their crew were hardly in the mood. They had been ignored, their efforts to keep Arcadia ready for action useless in the end.

They had been useless.

It didn't sit well with Harlock.

The bottle didn't cure that, though he was spared the hangover, but at least it passed the time.

tbc...


	5. Chapter 5

Kwoon sessions were rarely ever private, unless the pilot pair requested it. Usually people came to watch, though it wasn't the crowd from back when Raleigh had tried out against potential co-pilots.

Harlock and Yama hadn't made theirs a private session, but still only a few spectators had drifted in and out. Those who had been there right from the beginning were Chuck and Raleigh. Raleigh watched with sharp eyes, following each move, nodding appreciatively. Chuck was making mental notes himself.

Harlock wore black again, though not an underarmor. Black sweat pants, a black t-shirt with the skull logo on his chest, bare-footed. Yama has chosen PPDC blues, his tousled hair bound back, unlike his co-pilot, whose face was partially hidden behind the longish strands.

They worked well together, Raleigh decided. With an unusual style on Harlock's side, but one that was mirrored and completed by Yama.

And that was what a Kwoon session was all about.

Finding that perfect rhythm.

Not just fighting but harmony. Drifting without the Pons, anticipating your partner's moves and completing them.

Harlock was a mixture of styles, elegant, determined and strong. He went through the different kinds of weapons strewn around the room and Yama countered, sometimes with a completely different style or move.

Both were strong fighters, both weren't easily held down, and both showed their past training, their Drifts, the way they trusted in the other to keep them safe from harm.

Chuck grinned when Harlock pinned his co-pilot to the matt, making it impossible for him to counter the attack. He leaned down, hair obscuring his face, but his lips moved and Yama's sweat-streaked face showed a knowing smile.

"Heh," Chuck just said, raising his eyebrows at Raleigh.

His partner lifted a corner of his mouth, understanding the brief noise and answering the comment with a wordless one of his own.

Close.

Those two were incredibly close, just like the two pilots watching them.

Mako joined them silently, inclining her head in greeting. Her sharp eyes followed the new pair and she nodded her approval.

"They look good together," she remarked. "I doubt we will experience any trouble tomorrow."

"Unlike us?" Raleigh joked.

She shot him a mildly disapproving look, but the smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

"Captain Harlock has an interesting style," Mako commented after another exchange of blows. "So does Ranger Logan."

On the floor of the Kwoon, the dance went into the next round, both men giving and taking, continuing to match and mirror as it was ingrained in their very souls.

Epic North's pilot pair left them to it after a while, heading out into the hallways. Chuck had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his pants, looking a bit thoughtful. Raleigh was lost in his own thoughts. Their arms and shoulders brushed against each other, the closeness an unconscious move that showed their connection even to those who had no idea who those two men were.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Yama's back collided with the wall and Harlock crowded close, hands fisted in the blue shirt. He was breathing hard, aching from where he had hit the ground after Harlock had managed to surprise him with a rather dirty move throughout their training session.

Their mouths met in a kiss that was far from gentle. It was possessive and spiraling out of control, like the whole encounter. The kiss was hard, almost harsh, expressing pent-up energy, and Yama went with it without thinking. One of his hands was suddenly in Harlock's hair, the other curling around the slender waist. He lost himself in the contact, the taste and smell.

It went very far, very fast not soon after.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Kei ran a practiced eye over their infamous pilot pair and she didn't really need to guess; she knew.

"Kwoon," she told Yattaru. "With a decent helping of hot, sweaty sex afterwards."

The mechanic grimaced. "Need to know, Kei girl. I didn't need to know!" he complained.

She gave him a sweet smile, eyes following Harlock and Yama as they walked up to Bay 7 where Arcadia was surrounded by scaffolding and cranes, the crews working diligently on her to get the Jaeger ready for their first Drop.

They all knew that both men were more than mere co-pilots. No one batted an eye at that. It happened between a pair, delving so deep into the other mind that you became one person, driving a gigantic robot against gigantic monsters. Yama had been good for Harlock after the loss of Toshiro, who had been like a brother to the man. Kei was convinced that Harlock and Toshiro had never so much as felt anything but brotherly feelings.

Unlike Harlock and Yama.

That was a steamy pairing and she could see the closeness in how they worked, fought and lived with each other.

Kwoon sessions usually triggered something very intense. The way Yama moved, it had been quite a ride.

She grinned to herself and went back to going over Arcadia's updates.

Yattaru was already with the crew again, shouting orders and making sure Arcadia was well taken care of.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Yama couldn't hide how sore he felt, but it was something he cherished, something that sent spikes of pleasure through him, and he wouldn't say no to another round. Harlock's eye was on him and he gave the older man a pleased smile.

The Kwoon did this to them. They had barely made it back after five hours of rigorous training, and the moment the door had closed and locked, Harlock had been all over him. Literally. Damn, the man was demanding and hot and so perfect!

Yama shifted a little, which drew another look. He returned that look, challenging and promising in one. They would repeat that tonight, soreness to be damned. They had private quarters that locked, where no one could just waltz in. Yama intended to take advantage of that to the fullest.

But they had a Drift in a few hours. They would actually do a live Drop and run a few test circles outside with the other two Jaegers.

After that, anything would go.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Arcadia was a sight to behold as she powered up and was wheeled toward the launch bay. Lights danced over the ash black exterior, reflecting off the white skull design of the Conn-Pod and the crossbones on her chest. Deep within her chest cavity the Dark Matter Drive hummed, glowing a strange violet and blackish-blue.

"Initiating launch operations."

And today would be their first Drop with the newcomers.

Herc glanced at Tendo, who was handling Epic North. The decision had been to take everyone down for a swim, see how the new ones would handle. Raleigh and Chuck were to babysit, just in case something went wrong, while Arcadia would go through her live run and do a few rounds under non-simulation conditions.

Kei had joined them, set up not far from Tendo, keeping an eye on her pilots and her Jaeger. She was working calmly, efficiently, talking softly to Harlock or Yama and giving them brief updates on operational procedures.

Herc felt more tense than ever before. This was something new. The Dark Matter Drive had already powered up a few times and nothing had happened. It was alien and barely understood, but it worked and it connected two technologies from two worlds.

Still, he didn't feel at ease at all. Even if that thing had operated for ten years without blowing up in anyone's face, it was unknown. Arcadia's crew had next to no clue how it worked. They repaired what they understood. They replaced mechanical parts, but no one touched Dr. Miime's engine. It hadn't needed servicing, had never run out of fuel or whatever else it needed, and so it simple… was. It existed.

Then there was the fact that Yama had never had a live Drop and Harlock hadn't been back in the saddle ever since his near-death. One pilot who knew only theory and simulators, another who might be too damaged to last through a neural handshake.

Herc sighed.

Oh well.

Not like he hadn't had that before either. Back then it had worked. Fingers crossed that it would work again now.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

In the Conn-Pod, the technicians were swarming around Raleigh and Chuck as the spinal clamps were smoothly fitted into place with soft clicks. Chuck rolled his shoulders and his head, feeling the first tingles of the connection. He put on his helmet, the Relay Gel sinking into the suit, readying to transmit the impulses between both pilots.

Logging into the guidance control, Raleigh already checked Epic North's status. She was powering up nicely. The digital HUD went online, the virtual environment bathing everything in a soft blue. The physical controls locked into place.

Chuck glanced at him, catching a smile from his partner.

"Pons is ready," the Chief LOCCENT Officer announced. Tendo sounded rather chipper. "Prepare for neural handshake."

Chuck was more than ready. He was itching for a dive, even if it was routine by now.

"Neural Handshake in fifteen seconds."

Raleigh met his eyes, projecting nothing but calm and control.

"Ten. Pilot-to-pilot connection engaged," the female voice told them evenly.

Even after Anchorage, after sifting through Raleigh's past and confronting those ghosts with him, Chuck was sure they would connect perfectly. Maybe even more perfect than before. Nothing he had seen or heard would change what he felt for the other man. If anything, his emotions were even more intense.

Anchorage had opened his eyes in a new way. It had also gotten them so much closer outside the Drift. He wouldn't have believed that there was anything left for them to find, but there was.

As the voice hit zero, Chuck felt the pull of the Drift and he let it happen. He hadn't Drifted in weeks, but it was as if he had never gotten off that horse. He felt the rush of another mind melding into his, saw flashes of memories, of emotions, felt the presence glide and whirl around him.

It was sensual.

Almost sexual.

It was a kind of intimacy that couldn't be achieved outside the neural bridge.

And he let it happen.

Raleigh's presence was there, enveloping him, touching him more deeply than any physical caress could, and he smiled.

"Hey," he murmured.

Raleigh's reply was a surge of emotions that had Chuck want to laugh with happiness.

"You're good to go," Tendo told them.

The hangar doors slid open and the deployment began.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Herc had kept half an eye on Epic, but those were seasoned pilots, even if one was his only child, and Tendo was a seasoned LOCCENT tech. His main attention had been on the new pilots.

He walked over to Kei's station, taking in the readings from the HUD and listening to the exchange between the pilots and the tech.

"Systems holding steady, Captain. How are matters on your end?"

"Ready to go," the man replied.

Kei smiled. "Gotcha. Let's Drop."

She glanced at the Marshall and gave him a thumbs up.

"They'll be doing fine, Marshall. Harlock's a pro and Yama's no less than a perfect match for him. They'll do great."

"Fingers crossed then."

She turned back to her station.

YHYHY

"Two pilots engaged in neural bridge," the Jaeger A.I. announced.

YHYHY

Around Yama and Harlock the tech crew of Arcadia was busy attaching the cables to the feedback cradle, the full-spectrum neural transference plate on the back of their suits, like they had done so many times before in the simulators.

This time it wasn't a simulation, though.

This was real.

The HUD in front of the pilots lit up, showing them the outside in real-time.

Their boots and wrists clamped into place, locked into the Conn-Pod's controls.

"Pilot-to-pilot connection engaged."

The interface complete, everyone but the two pilots left the Conn-Pod.

Connecting to Arcadia Zero was nothing Harlock could describe to anyone outside his head. He had been in a Jaeger before the Deathshadows had been constructed and it was unlike that.

Completely.

You couldn't train for the Dark Matter. You couldn't prepare. All the simulations ran along the lines of known Jaeger tech.

Dark Matter was more than an engine. It was something that lived inside the core of Arcadia, that reached for the pilots and made them one with the Jaeger, with the exotic alien particles themselves every time they Drifted. It was always there and it irradiated them, changed them, made them… different.

Not even his team could grasp what it meant to hook himself up to such a massive machine, to feel it, to be it, to immerse oneself into a world that was real and then again not. He dropped into the Anteverse while still standing in his reality, his dimension, and it revived the moments he spent on the other side again and again.

It never gave him answers as to what had happened to Tochiro, but it reminded him that what they did was nothing they truly understood. They were playing with forces unknown.

And still Harlock could control it.

He felt a whispery touch, heard a hum that was and wasn't human. Like a ghost peering over his shoulder, a presence brushed over his mind, and was gone.

The Arcadia wasn't sentient, but something was there. Harlock believed it was Toshiro, that he was still there, though not as he had been as a human. There was an imprint of his oldest friend and it couldn't be erased.

Someone was suddenly there, anchoring him, keeping him from falling into the Anteverse's abyss. Harlock smiled at Yama, scared and relieved in one.

He hadn't wanted a new co-pilot back then.

Yama hadn't taken no for an answer.

He had stepped into this distorted version of a Drift, knowing it would probably destroy any chance of him, Yama Logan, to ever be anything but Harlock's co-pilot.

The Dark Matter took. It twisted the pilots to work with the Jaeger. It had saturated Yama's cells and connected him to Harlock.

"Ready?" Yama asked lightly, threading their fingers together and pulling Harlock close.

"Ready," he replied.

Two years and still he thanked whoever was listening each time their connected.

Concentrating on the Drop, he let the HUD wash over him, let himself fall into the Drift, and Yama floated with him, carefully keeping him from going in too deep.

At the edge of his perception he thought he felt Tochiro, like he always did, had always done. Like a ghost, a part of his consciousness within Arcadia. There were never words, just emotions.

Harlock had never told anyone, except for Yama. His partner knew because of the Drift, because of the connection, and because he sometimes sensed it, too.

"Let's go," the younger man murmured softly.

Arcadia Zero followed the other Jaeger into the Pacific, heading toward the location of the former Breach.

tbc...


	6. Chapter 6

Yama knew that he was grinning like a loon, but he didn't care.

This was his first real Drop with a Jaeger, not just some very good simulation, and he was insanely happy. More than happy. He was amazed, proud and nervous in one. He could have laughed, cried out his happiness to the world, but he was a professional.

So he was calm and collected, did his job, worked in sync with his much more experienced co-pilot, and he let the warmth of Harlock with him in the Drift wash over him, guide him, reassuring and energizing in one.

There was a small tremor of unease as they approached the Breach, the HUD informing him that they would reach the now closed doorway into the Anteverse within the next ten minutes. LOCCENT was a constant murmur in his ear, but he didn't need Kei to know where they were and what to do. This was just a trial run.

The tremor came back, accompanied by a shapeless fear of… something.

It disappeared just as quickly and he felt his co-pilot clamp down on his emotional reactions.

Weird.

Harlock was the most controlled person Yama knew and the other man had never lost it in any of their Drifts together.

"Hey," he whispered over the connection.

Harlock didn't answer, stared straight ahead and moved with single-minded determination.

The tremor came back, this time a little more pronounced, and Yama caught a skittering image of pain and horror, dropping endlessly and being alone. Then the shapeless nightmare was back, swallowing everything, leaving only the negative in its wake.

It was like standing in a foggy room, no shapes around him visible, but he knew he was somewhere, that something very physical was outside. He could feel it, almost hear it, but the more he looked, the less he saw. Yama thought he had been here before, that he remembered something that had happened to him, but nothing came.

And then there was the pain in his head and it amplified the closer they came to the Breach.

Dark Matter coursed through their veins, but to him it was like a siren's song, it drew him closer, enveloped him, caressed him. He was encased in it, protected and still in danger.

And he was alone.

That heavy, cold feeling, oppressive and alien, but an old friend nevertheless.

Alone.

His co-pilot was suddenly no more and he was in the Drift, in the shapeless gray fog that was the Headspace.

"Harlock," he whispered.

LOCCENT couldn't hear them, but if Kei monitored the Drift as she was, she would see them going out of alignment soon enough.

"Harlock!"

Blood ran into his eyes, turning the fog a weird reddish pink. The pain increased, then flared once and quieted down as Arcadia Zero came to a stop beside the scarred ocean floor where the destruction of Striker Eureka had torn open the ground in a gigantic nuclear explosion. Not much further ahead lay the silent, closed Breach.

"Fuck! Harlock!"

His co-pilot finally seemed to shake himself out of whatever state he had fallen into, his breathing a little harsher than before, and Harlock blinked once, twice.

This hadn't been a rabbit.

This hadn't been triggered by the Drift.

"You feel it," Yama heard himself murmur, but his lips didn't move. They were in too deep in the connection to need true words.

Harlock looked at him, face pale and drawn, but he had visibly pulled himself together. Completely in control again.

"It's no longer there, but you feel it."

Yama wrapped himself around the shaken presence, despite Harlock's attempt to pull back.

Arcadia stood stock still, like frozen.

"Yama, Harlock, do you copy?" Kei asked, sounding like she was repeating something both men hadn't caught.

"Affirmative, LOCCENT," Harlock answered and Yama was struck by how calm and professional he sounded, despite the terror of the shapeless nightmares hovering over him like a ghostly shadow. "We are in position, awaiting instructions."

"Roger that."

Kei didn't ask, but Yama knew she suspected something had happened. They were strapped into the Drivesuits and cradle. LOCCENT had their bio data. Something must have spiked.

"Green light for test run, Captain," she finally said. "Scanners on full, then take a walk around. We'll be monitoring."

Yep, that had been a pretty big hint.

Harlock proceeded like nothing had happened. Nothing at all.

Yama let him.

There was time for an analysis later. All he knew was that his partner reacted to the residual radiation from the Breach and that was nothing he would or could just ignore.

At least not for long.

YHYHYH

The debriefing was short and to the point. Marshall Hansen commended them on their Drop, but he did ask about the momentary lapse.

Harlock stood ramrod straight, face unreadable.

"Just momentary, sir," he replied evenly.

Hansen frowned, those intense blue eyes boring into the younger man. "You nearly went out of alignment, captain. What happened? I know it wasn't a rabbit."

The tense set to Harlock's shoulders was plain to see. "Flashback, sir," he finally said, teeth clenched, voice rough.

Hansen leaned back, the calculating look in his eyes a little unnerving. He looked at Yama for a long moment.

"You handled it pretty good, Logan."

"Thank you, Marshall."

"This could have seriously backfired, though."

"I'm aware of it," Harlock answered, clipped.

"I'm not going to bench you over it. You're been sitting around way too long and I believe it was to be expected under real conditions. But it means we will keep a close eye on you, captain. It also means more training. You have gotten a little rusty."

Harlock nodded jerkily. Yama felt a rush of relief.

"You did a good job for a team that hasn't seen any action together, aside from the simulator. I'll have Mako draw up a schedule for you to work with. Exploring the Breach is the primary function of this Shatterdome. You're part of that now."

"Understood."

"Now go get something to eat and sleep it off. Dismissed."

Yama saluted. Harlock just turned and followed his co-pilot out the door. They walked down the corridor in mutual silence, drawing looks from the personnel passing them. Even now, after over a week, Harlock's presence gathered attention. He was a sight to behold, especially since he kept his usual dress code of black with the Arcadia's huge logo on his chest. He had a commanding presence, despite being just a Ranger, not part of the command structure.

People showed him respect, Yama knew. It was what had always fascinated him about his co-pilot. And to the Hong Kong Shatterdome and the rest of the world outside a very few top brass, Harlock was this legendary Ranger who piloted a mythical Jaeger.

Yama almost laughed, biting back a grin as he turned a corner. Two ground personnel in oily overalls whispered to each other as Harlock passed them, one looking almost thunderstruck.

"Food?" Yama asked lightly as he noticed Harlock's scowl.

"Go ahead," was the dismissal as his co-pilot walked on and by-passed the corridor leading toward the mess.

Yama shook his head and let him go. Time to track him down and talk later. Not that Harlock was much of a talker on a good day, but he would get to the bottom of this somehow.

Right now he needed something to eat.

He was hungry like a wolf.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Arcadia was a black, foreboding figure, gigantic, deadly, and still nothing without a human pilot pair to drive her. She stood in her Bay, the Dark Matter silent and barely humming deep within her chest cavity. Maintenance had gone over her, had removed foreign particles picked up throughout the last mission, and had cleaned off the salt water and sea weed. Aside from one or two night owls repairing small components, everything was calm and quiet.

Harlock looked at his Jaeger, felt the melancholy and pride as he usually did. Arcadia wouldn't exist without the brilliant mind of Tochiro. She was his legacy, the only survivor aside from Harlock himself, and it was a sobering thought. Tochiro had left his footsteps in the history of human kind, was a hero, was a role model. He and Dr. Miime had done groundbreaking work, but it had been too experimental even when Earth had been about to be invaded and humanity eradicated.

She had worked incredibly well today, not at all rusty or a lumbering relic from old times. Arcadia was a powerful Jaeger and while old compared to Epic or Skyfall, she could hold her own. Harlock had no doubt that should a Kaiju come out of the ocean again, Arcadia would kick his blue ass.

Bright sparks arced across the Bay as someone was welding high up on Arcadia's shoulder joint. Her chest plate was locked down, the Dark Matter core silent.

But he felt it.

Pulsing and warm, caressing its pilot, the one bound to it like no other.

Harlock closed his eyes, felt the chitter of nerves again, that fine tremor that had started when they had been too close to the Breach. His scarred eye ached, a phantom pain that he hadn't experienced in a while. He unconsciously reached for the eyepatch and his fingers brushed over the leathery material.

The pain faded, just a hum in the back of his brain, like a headache about to rise. No pain killers would help here.

People moved around him, his crew giving him brief nods, but they didn't try to make small talk. Those unfamiliar with Harlock or those who had seen him just a few times in the past openly stared, whispering to each other.

He was used to it.

He stood out.

He had never tried to blend in, wore Arcadia's logo with pride, and the scars did the rest.

Harlock had never cared.

He gazed at the black Jaeger again, wistful, a little longing.

"Hey, old friend," he murmured. "My ghost in the machine."

Tochiro was part of Arcadia. Harlock thought he felt him sometimes, even if the Jaeger wasn't sentient or even close to it. The AI was not independent and LOCCENT was the voice in the pilots' ears. But in the Drift, within the headspace shared with Yama, there were old footprints.

Mindprints.

Yama had remarked on it once, when they had been alone in bed together, the hum of the afterglow between them like After-Drift Ghosts. Harlock had just looked at his partner, gauging his reaction to the idea of Tochiro's mindprints with them.

Yama had been rather accepting, maybe even fascinated.

"He's part of all of this. And he doesn't have you like I have you," had been Yama's quiet answer to his unspoken question. "He was your best friend and you were drift compatible. So are we. And I know what I am to you."

Long fingers played over his skin, along the scars, feather-light, teasing and calming in one.

Harlock felt himself smile a little, the memories pushing back the foggy nightmare. The Dark Matter seemed to curl around his mind, embracing him, and he closed his eye, letting himself sink into that comfort.

tbc...


	7. Chapter 7

Yama was in the mess hall, shoveling casserole into his mouth like he hadn't eaten in a month. Raleigh raised an eyebrow at him, nodding at the free seat, and the other pilot gave him a nod back, his mouth too full to answer in words.

"There's more where that came from. We're not rationing," Raleigh remarked with a little smile.

"And s'good," was the reply around another forkful. "Most real taste I had since I don't know when."

He chuckled. "You get second servings. Slow down before I have to explain to your co-pilot why you passed out from lack of air."

Yama grinned. "He's used to that."

Chuck slid in beside Raleigh, laughing at Yama's tour de force through his lunch. "A wolverine eats with better table manners," he remarked.

"Hey," Yama muttered, though he didn't sound offended, and washed the last bite down with water.

"Didn't they feed you in your retirement center?"

Yama shot Chuck an evil look. The other pilot grinned broadly, not the least repentant.

"Where's your partner?" Raleigh wanted to know, turning the talk away from Arcadia's passive status of the past years.

"Still with Arcadia Zero. He gets like that sometimes. I get hungry, he broods or mopes around the Jaeger for a while. I shove food down his throat, he complains about mother-henning."

"Perfect match." Chuck smirked at Raleigh, who kicked him under the table.

"I do not brood," Becket countered.

"Oh please!"

"Or mope!"

"Riiiight! Five years, Becket. You crawled under a rock and did the heroic suffering in silence thing. For five bloody years!"

"While you were an ass on TV."

"Hero, you mean."

"Half. You and Herc. You were the total ass, though."

"He was _my_ co-pilot," Chuck shot back.

"You sound like an old married couple," Yama remarked casually.

Chuck's expression was outrage mixed with embarrassment.

"Who proposed first?"

Raleigh went back to his food, snickering. Chuck grumbled something uncomplimentary.

Yama wiped sauce off the plate with a piece of bread. Then he exchanged the plate for the dessert bowl. It was brimming with chocolate pudding and crumbled brownies.

"It's a small wonder you don't look like a beached whale." Kei dropped her tray and sat down beside Yama. "I have no idea what kind of metabolisms you pilots have, but I swear those twenty thousand calories burn right off your hips the moment you get up from the table. You and Harlock. It's highly unfair."

Yama shrugged and started to demolish his dessert. Kei gave the other two pilots a bright smile.

"So. That was a good run today," she remarked. "I heard there's another one scheduled soon."

Raleigh nodded. "Day after tomorrow, early hours of the morning. Just Arcadia and Epic again. Eight hour shift collecting material and scanning the ocean floor for Anteverse traces."

"It'll be a good exercise. We haven't seen those two in a long Drift forever. Will be a good work-out."

Yama looked unconcerned. The two hours of today had been easy, a walk in the park, for all of them. The next time would be no different; maybe just a lot better.

"Keep your strength up," Chuck mocked and nodded at the now empty plate and bowl. "Or Becket and I will kick your asses."

Kei rolled her eyes. "Too bad Skyfall's current out of rotation. I wish I could see her in action. She's a classy old fighter."

"Mark-3," Becket said, sounding a little wistful. "She was supposed to be decommissioned and Bond and Q would have been assigned a new Mark-7, but so far it's a too tight budget for more than one new Jaeger. Epic was the first and is currently the last of that generation."

"Epic looks sleek," Kei agreed. "Skyfall's classy. Like Gipsy was." She nodded at him. "She had a strong comeback and kicked ass."

Raleigh's expression shifted from friendly to distant to a rather genuine smile. "Yeah. She did. Every time."

Chuck leaned almost unobtrusively closer. The expression in his eyes had shifted and his features sharpened a little. Gone was the playful, careless mockery.

"Skyfall's like an old warship," Raleigh said. "Like Bond." He lifted a corner of his mouth. "He and his copilot will be back soon, then you can see them on a dive. Strong Drift. You might want to hide Arcadia, though. Q is the former Quartermaster of the Vancouver Shatterdome. "

Kei chuckled. "That I heard. He and Bond are drift compatible. Seems like we got to a place where the unusual works." Kei raised her eyebrows at the two men, while Yama just ploughed through his dessert, listening attentively. "You two are just as unlikely as our infamous pair."

"Harlock's something," Chuck agreed.

"You don't know half of it." She cast a look at Yama. "Took us long enough to get that one housebroken."

"Hey!"

Kei gave him an innocent smile.

Yama grimaced and scraped the last of the chocolate pudding out of the bowl.

"But yeah, they work. Like you two. Heard about your fights." Kei grinned. "And now you're riding the latest in Jaeger tech like you never had any other co-pilots."

Raleigh shrugged and Chuck refused to comment. Chuck had only ever had one other steady partner, his father, and Pentecost didn't really count. The man had brought no baggage into the Drift, had been like one of the instructors in the Academy.

Raleigh had been his brother's co-pilot and later he had been compatible with Mako. Two very different people, and very different from Chuck, who he had clashed with on the outside and been nothing but smooth inside the Drift.

Sometimes odd worked.

Sometimes the most unlikely pairing was the best, even if there was neither a blood relationship nor a personal connection. Currently the three active Jaegers were all piloted by men who weren't related to each other, but they had all developed a more personal relationship, a very intimate relationship, later on.

YHYHYH

The three pilots left not much later, Raleigh and Chuck heading for a meeting with Mako.

Yama himself started his hunt for his elusive partner, now with a pleasantly full stomach, and with a doggy bag in hand.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Harlock wasn't in the Jaeger Bay any more, so Yama started looking around until he had hunted down his partner in one of the storage areas. It was like following a trail only Yama could see and feel, getting pulled toward where the other pilot was studying huge tanks filled with liquids, Kaiju parts flowing in an eerie yellow light.

"Looks like a freak show down here," Yama remarked as he joined him.

Harlock glanced at him, lips twitching into a barely perceptible smile.

"Lunch," the younger man announced and held up the container he had carried along. "And you'll eat it."

"Or else?"

"Or else," he confirmed.

Harlock took the container and walked over to a crate to settle down. Yama followed, staying close. He felt the mood waft off his partner like it was alive, like it were his own emotions. In a way they were because of the Pons. Whenever they connected, the Ghost Drifts stayed with them with such force, it was hard to be your own person for a while.

Yama had gotten used to it. He actually needed that closeness to handle his co-pilot, to gauge his reaction, to keep an eye on the scarred man. Harlock, for all his distance and walls, the raised shields and the austere personality, needed human contact. He needed Yama to do what the younger man had always done: pull him away from the abyss and face life. Reality. The rest of the human world, away from the Dark Matter.

Harlock ate, cleaning off everything Yama had brought with him, down to the brownie, which wasn't shared. Not that he was hungry; he had filled up nicely and had no room left. Not even for dessert.

Sitting in companionable silence, Yama let his eyes wander over the collection of Kaiju parts. Some were just chunks of something from somewhere, other pieces were more readily identifiable. He looked at what he thought was a rather well-preserved tongue, curled up and attached to electrodes that seemed to measure something or other. A small box was attached to the container, the display dark, but it was probably recording whatever the K-Scientists needed it to record.

"There were echoes."

He glanced at his co-pilot, Harlock's low, dark voice barely a whisper.

"Yeah," he acknowledged.

He had felt it, too. Getting close to the Breach, the part of their world where only a thin barrier kept the Anteverse from reconnecting. Yama had been browsing through the archives and he had stumbled onto a paper by Dr. Newton Geiszler, who claimed that the Anteverse had been trying to take over Earth before.

It was a scary thought.

And Yama really wanted to talk to Geiszler about it.

He knew that the K-Scientists in turn were very interested in the Dark Matter drive since it was of alien origin and contained unexplored and not understood particles from the other side of the Breach. Harlock wasn't even close to happy about possibly getting questioned about what had happened a decade ago, but Yama was convinced he, they, could learn something.

About the Dark Matter. About the Anteverse. Tochiro. About what had happened to Harlock on the other side.

Feeling the shivers of the Breach, being so close to it, had been almost overwhelming for his partner. Harlock might not show it, but he was terrified of what lay underneath the ocean floor. He would fight what came through, he would probably drop through again to take care of the Anteverse inhabitants once and for all, never showing a single fragment of the terror he felt inside, but Yama was only too aware of how it ate at him, how it tore his soul apart.

It was up to him to buffer this, to counter the terror, to keep Harlock human and functional.

"It's still there," the other man murmured. "Waiting. Might take a thousand years, maybe a million, but they will try again."

"At least we know the threat is there and we can work on a better defense."

Harlock snorted. "So will they. A better offense."

Yama knew all the arguments, had listened to them countless times, and he had been inside Harlock's head often enough to know where the other man came from. He also knew there was no other way.

"You felt something, Harlock. I saw it. I felt the echoes."

Harlock's hands clenched into fists.

"You can't remember, but there are… emotions," Yama went on. "Connected to that time. You feel the Breach radiation. And your brain tries to get back what it lost."

"I know what it does to me!" was the harsh reply.

It washed over the younger man, the anger and pain, then it was gone again. Harlock rarely had outbursts like that. It made him more human in Yama's eyes. Never vulnerable, only so much stronger than anyone could fathom.

He wasn't ready to talk about this, though. Not yet anyway.

"The Marshall asked about letting his guys take a look at the Dark Matter drive," Yama changed the subject.

Harlock shrugged.

There was hardly anything they could do about it. Arcadia, while their Jaeger and Harlock's pride, wasn't their property. He was only one half of the pilot pair. They were Rangers for the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. They were under Hansen's command. Arcadia was part of the Hong Kong Shatterdome and if someone wanted to try their luck, they could. Kei wouldn't be happy, neither would Yattaran, but they had to live with the intrusions.

"Let him. It's not like his people are the first to try and understand it."

Harlock was protective of Yama, foremost. Then came the J-techs who had been part of his life for so long, had been loyal and had stood by a Jaeger that had never officially been decommissioned and that had been a very well-kept secret for a long, long time. His crew, Yama had once joked. Harlock was their captain, the others were the crew, and it Arcadia wasn't a Jaeger, she would be a pirate ship heading into a sea of stars and beyond.

Harlock had only smiled and shaken his head.

"And I'm asking to get the hell out of this freak show," Yama added lightly, drawing the other man out of his thoughts.

It got him a chuckle. Harlock rose, the movement fluid, graceful, speaking of contained strength and power. He held out a hand and Yama raised his eyebrows as he took it.

"Are we going to dance?" he teased.

He was pulled in close and he let himself. He enjoyed having Harlock on his own, walls going down and the smile on his face real, not dark and cruel. The eye was alight with something warm, something reserved for private moments of the seconds before the Drift.

"We always are," the other pilot told him, then kissed him in a rare display of open affection outside the privacy of the Drift or their quarters.

Yama couldn't argue with that and he was fully committed to feeling good, making Harlock feel good. A sense of overwhelming desire and need pushed through him and he groaned into the kiss. Ghost Drifts were fun. Having Harlock surge forward was even more fun.

"We should take this somewhere else," his partner whispered into his ear, voice rough and slightly shaky.

"Really good idea, Captain," he replied, grinning at the narrowed eye. "'Cause I've been wanting to get you naked and in me ever since the last time."

"That was hard to miss in the Drift."

Yama hummed. "I had hoped so."

He knew he would probably be unable to sit down later on, judging by the fire in Harlock's eye, the wave of Ghosts cascading over him. This closely after a neural handshake it was always the strongest. Sex would be awesome. Amazing. Mind-blowing. Especially if Harlock gave in and just let himself act on instinct, not think about every single step.

Yeah, it was a good thing they weren't expected to show their faces until the next Drop.

Kei and Yattaran could handle matters concerning Arcadia; no pilots needed. Marshall Hansen had told them to unwind.

Yep, they would do just that.

YHYHYHYH

He was proven right a few hours later as he lay in their shared bed, breathing hard, the eddies of his last climax still jittering through him. Harlock pulled out, making him groan at the loss and the sharp reminder that this body part could get sore.

Still, Yama drew him into a messy kiss, biting playfully at the parted lips.

Hair even more tousled and in disarray than usual, sweat glistening on his face, Harlock looked as high as Yama felt. It was an amazing sensation, powerful and empowering, hissing and snapping around them, making Yama yearn for more.

Harlock had once said something about the Dark Matter that had irradiated them both, about it reacting to their physical exertion, but Yama didn't care what it was. He also didn't want it to be explored by science or otherwise. He just enjoyed it.

Especially the low refractory period.

He enjoyed that a lot.

Harlock huffed a little laugh as he carded his fingers into the captain's hair, massaging his head.

"Insatiable."

"Look who's talking," Yama replied lazily.

Harlock rolled half on top of him, one knee between Yama's legs, hair falling forward to obscure his face. Yama reached up and pushed it back, looking into the intense eye, taking in the hunger.

They both needed this. As much as they could have. Right now. Right here.

Things had happened down there, in Harlock's mind, in his body, making him feel memories without remembering them. He would have to deal with that, but not right now.

Right now he just wanted to have fun, to work out in a different way.

tbc...


	8. Chapter 8

The whole crew had taken the shuttles to get to Hong Kong and celebrate the first real live launch and the success of it. Hong Kong was a bustle of people of all nationalities. It was a city suffering from Kaiju-induced destruction, but it was rising like phoenix out of the ashes and had done so after the almost devastating attack from over a year ago once more.

The Bone Slums still existed. They were a melting pot of shops, restaurants, soup kitchens, hour hotels or shady little apartment complexes and a thriving black market. Shrouded in the heavy fog hovering over the harbor, the hodge-podge settlement with its Kaiju Temple and the skeleton of the defeated creatures very much part and parcel of the architectural design, it looked mysterious and surreal.

Yama watched everything with fascination and excitement, taking in the smells, sounds and sights, waving off shop owners who tried to pull in the Jaeger pilots to make a good deal for them, shaking his head at the food offerings from the mobile kitchens.

Yattaran and most the mechanics had already disappeared in the densely packed streets, heading for the legal and illegal gambling tables, the pubs and breweries, or to find a companion for the night. Kei had waved off Yama's offer to spring for a little sight seeing tour around the city with one of the many bike-drawn carriages. Someone at the Shatterdome had given her a list of shops she wanted to visit.

Harlock was dressed in his habitual black, the white skull and bones standing out but not drawing too many looks. People here were used to the unusual. Scars, tattoos, colorful clothes, torn and tattered clothes, sometimes not wearing too much as if the person was immune to the cold, clingy air, it was all part of this world.

Yama followed his co-pilot through the crowded streets, weaving between men, women and children, nearly falling over a small cart of freshly collected seaweed for sale or barter. He laughed and shook his head at his own clumsiness.

Harlock watched everything with distant interest, but he couldn't fool Yama for a second. They were both tourists here and Harlock wasn't as distanced and cool as he liked to pretend.

They went to the Kaiju Temple, simply because Harlock was interested and Yama had been itching to look at the Kaiju skull up close and personal. When Reckoner had been taken down in 2016, the remains had been harvested and nine years later a shanty little town, the Bone Slums, had sprung up around it. Even today the bones were still mined by organ harvesters.

A lot of dedicated work had gone into forming a lavish temple out of a dead creature's skeleton, and it was strangely beautiful, though also severely disturbing at the same time.

With the defeat of the Kaiju, the cultists had dwindled in active numbers, but the temple was still there and robed figures prayed at the altar. All over the world, churches had emerged, but none as curious as Hong Kong's temple.

Sometime after the emergence of the Kaiju, individuals had started religious institutions in support of the creatures. Cultists saw the Kaiju as servants or archangels to gods displeased with mankind's evil behavior. They prayed that the Kaiju's attacks would rid them of the evil in their hearts and deliver them from suffering. Jaegers were called false prophets and the actions of PPDC seen as made by unholy individuals who didn't understand the message of salvation.

So it was no great surprise that Harlock and Yama drew sharp looks, almost hostile, as they walked around the temple, taking in the vivid depictions of the various Kaijus, the candles burning in front of them, the offerings presented.

"Warm welcome," Yama murmured. "Those guys have a really winning aura around them."

One of the red-dressed cultists whispered harshly, the language unknown to Yama, but he didn't need to understand the words to understand the meaning.

"And a hello to you, too. We weren't even involved in blowing up your precious monsters."

Harlock ignored the looks. He wasn't deterred from sightseeing, and he took his time. Yama had to hold back his amusement at the evil looks from the Kaiju priests.

YHYHYHY

When they finally left, Yama grabbed his partner's arm and pulled him over to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that had no seats and tables. It consisted solely of a stove and several shelves that held spices and other ingredients. A tarp covered a rickety wooden frame.

People were lining up in front of it to get food, so, in Yama's opinion, it had to be good, especially since some of those people were from the Shatterdome.

"Here," he told Harlock and pushed a bowl of what he guessed was stew on rice at him.

The other man took it, eyebrow climbing, but he started to eat.

It was good, Yama decided. Really good and spicy.

"You want to find the others and celebrate with them?" he asked when they had washed down the food with tea. "I know you're not the party type, but we completed our first real run without blowing up shit. I think they'd appreciate you joining them."

Harlock's eye was on the crowds, deep in thought, then he finally nodded. Yama knew from experience that he wouldn't stay long, but at least he would drink a little, unwind a little, let himself live for a moment.

YHYHYHY

They found Yattaran and most of the tech crew in the Kaiju Blue, a bar-slash-gambling hall that was teeming with raucous laughter, loud music, the clink of glasses and the hoots of men and women cheering for a dancer.

Yama waved at the familiar faces, was almost drowned in a sea of backclaps and drunken hugs. He accepted a mug of whatever alcoholic beverage was currently favored, and he grinned at Harlock, who had been given the same treatment.

They ended up at a table, dubious fod and liquids everywhere, and Yama leaned back to enjoy the show and the company.

YHYHYHY

He was a little drunk when they left in the early hours of the morning. Harlock had simply gotten up from the table, like a switch had been flipped, but Yama hadn't been caught by surprise. The signs had been there for a while and he was more surprised that the older pilot had stayed on as long as he had done.

The cool air was as foggy as when they had walked into the bar and it was actually quite refreshing. There was no telling what time it was, though Yama's watch told him it had to be three a.m. The throng of people was still there. Hong Kong was busy twenty-four hours a day, not following any schedule.

They caught a shuttle back to the Shatterdome at the harbor just as the sky opened up and rain started to fall in fat, heavy drops. Looking at the pitch black clouds rolling in from across the ocean, the weather was declining.

They were jostled by gusts of wind and the pilot muttered a curse as he landed the helicopter. It was a little more rocky than planned, most likely.

Yama and Harlock hurried inside, both already soaked, and Yama had to laugh at his partner. Harlock's hair was matted to his skull, hanging into his eyes, and he was dripping wet.

Not that he himself was any better off.

Harlock's face was all sharp angles and the scar stood out even more, especially with the eyepatch showing.

They trailed water as they walked to their quarters where Yama peeled off his clothes and watched Harlock do the same. His partner was far from bony, just slender and sinewy, with muscles showing in all the right places.

"We should do this again," Yama remarked as they slid into bed, dressed in warm, dry shirts and shorts. "It was fun."

Harlock chuckled. "It was."

He grinned and elbowed the other lightly. "Told you."

The alcohol was still in his system and he felt tired. Harlock switched off the light and Yama dropped off within minutes.

YHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHYYHYHYHY

Newton Geiszler, a man with six doctorates in his name, despite his biology and genetics background, was all over the Dark Matter drive. He was bouncing around the walkway, taking readings, looking for all the world like a kid who had been given the key to the candy store for life.

Harlock watched the scientist with an amused expression, while Yattaran and Kei scowled and twitched sometimes, as if they wanted to pull Geiszler away from their Jaeger.

Geiszler had actually just accompanied the main Anteverse expert, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, and the Shatterdome's Chief Engineer, Mako Mori, who were both a lot more controlled and professional compared to Geiszler.

"This is amazing!" Newt gushed, looking at his pad. "It's almost like that spike of radiation we got off Otachi and the baby! Just so much more concentrated and powerful! Herm! Will you take a look at this?!"

Gottlieb grimaced at the abbreviated name and limped over, muttering something to his colleague, though it didn't dampen Newt's spirit. He was rambling, gesticulating, eyes alight. Harlock saw a small twitch of warmth in Gottlieb's eyes, a fond patience that didn't show in his words or mimicry otherwise.

Those two men had known each other and worked together for over ten years.

Yes, it showed.

"He is… enthusiastic, I have to give him that," Kei remarked, sounding curious.

"Dr. Geiszler is passionate about his work," Mako agreed, scanning over schematics and making notes. "He is also unrivalled in his field of expertise." There was a sliver of pride in her voice.

"He's the crazy guy who Drifted with a Kaiju, right?" Yattaran asked.

"Both did. Dr. Geiszler and Dr. Gottlieb. Dr. Geiszler initiated the first Drift on his own. The second time he had a co-pilot."

"Uh-huh." Kei looked like she didn't believe either man had been anywhere close to sane at the time.

Desperate times. Operation Pitfall. The Apocalypse on the horizon and mankind's last chance of survival.

Yes, Harlock understood.

Geiszler moved along the walkway, eyes wide and filled with fascination, hands flying as he explained something or other, and Yattaran rolled his eyes with good-natured humor, then rumbled something that made Newton grin even more.

"Oh, they're going to be best friends," Kei sighed.

YHYHYHY

Harlock himself stood next to his Jaeger, feeling strangely proprietary and protective of the hunk of metal. It was the property of the PPDC, but it was also part of him. He was part of Arcadia. The crew called him her Captain. It had been a joke at first. Now it was almost real.

Yama joined him, leaning against the railing's support beam, shooting the older pilot a knowing look. His hair was messy as usual, hanging into his eyes, and he was wearing his golden brown flight jacket over a black shirt and jeans.

"No one's gonna mess with her," he said softly, for Harlock's ears only.

The other tensed for a moment, then relaxed minutely again.

"I have a million questions!" Newton exclaimed, craning his neck to look up at where the Dark Matter Drive was situated deep within Arcadia. "And I really want to see the Drive."

"I was afraid of that," Kei groaned.

Geiszler beamed at her, a disarming smile, bright eyes, and even brighter tattoos painting a strangely disjointed picture of a man who was a genius and didn't really behave like a respectable scientist.

Kei gave him a little push toward the observation platform. "I'm all yours, doc, but not here. I want a seat and food, at least two pots of coffee, and chocolate can do wonders."

Yattaran rumbled something that had Newton laugh and followed.

Gottlieb remained behind, shadowed by Mako, who was diligently working on her pad. The Anteverse expert looked slightly sour, like this was taking precious time away from more important work. Or like he didn't really want to be that close to the Dark Matter, Harlock mused.

Many didn't want that. A lot of people believed the otherworldly radiation would kill them.

It hadn't killed either Harlock or any of the other men working so close with Arcadia yet. Medically he was completely fine. Psychologically… debatable. Only Yama understood what he felt when connected to Arcadia and only because of the Drift connection. The Dark Matter wasn't alive, but Harlock perceived it as such. He would never talk about this with anyone but his co-pilot, though.

Arms crossed in front of his chest, the captain of Arcadia gave Gottlieb a raised eyebrow.

"Dr. Miime and I were briefly colleagues," Gottlieb suddenly said, voice reflecting what he thought of that. His eyes were slightly narrowed and intense as he looked at Harlock. "She never shared much unless asked repeatedly. Bright mind, yes. Sometimes erratic. Always cutting the edge. She had brilliant ideas. Incredibly brilliant." He huffed a little sigh. "You and I never met, though, Captain Harlock. In all the time I was there, I only talked to those working on the Dark Matter Drive, never to the pilots who would connect to it."

Harlock raised his eyebrow. "My role in Nibelung was more of a support actor than the star. That were the Deathshadows. Dr. Miime has been missing for close to ten years."

"And with her all her research. I would have helped us close the Breach if she hadn't been such a secret keeper," Gottlieb groused bluntly. "She didn't leave any blueprints for that," he gestured at Arcadia, "either. At least not for the core unit. She never filed anything in her computer or her laptop. It was all in her head and with that head, it vanished. For all her brilliance she was a stupid woman in that regard! You have been sitting on an alien matter drive without really understanding what it might be capable of!"

Oh, Harlock had a few ideas. The Dark Matter had taken a hold of him, had changed things. Yes, he had no clue what that meant, how it worked, but he understood that whatever had happened to him in the Anteverse, to Tochiro, it had been because of the Dark Matter.

"But since you are one of two people to go into the Breach, down the Throat and into another dimension, you are my best chance at reviving Dr. Miime's research and maybe make a first step into understanding the Anteverse."

Gottlieb leaned on his cane, giving Harlock a hard, uncompromising look. He wouldn't take no for an answer. He would be an even worse pain the ass than Newton.

"Ranger Becket hasn't been enough help?" Harlock asked coldly.

"Oh, he's an immense help. Unlike you he recalls every moment he was in that place," Gottlieb replied sharply. "But as a scientist I explore all the angles."

"You have my file."

"Words on paper," was the dismissive answer. "You were inside. Sitting on a Dark Matter drive. I believe in my own research, not third party gossip."

Yama's amusement was plain to see and feel. His partner liked Gottlieb, for all his abrasive manner and lack of people skills.

"I expect to see you at four p.m. in my lab," Gottlieb announced, then limped off.

"Quite a character," Yama chuckled, looking at Mako.

She gave him a polite smile, but her amusement was clear to see. "I would advice that you do not miss that appointment. Dr. Gottlieb can become quite cross."

Harlock didn't answer, just watched the man disappear in an elevator. He would love to miss it. He had no intention to become a guinea pig.

"We'll be there," he heard Yama promise easily.

tbc...


	9. Chapter 9

Due to work growing exponentially as always at the end of the year, chapters are taking time and this one is a little shorter. Sorry, everyone! I hope the work load will go down soon. *sighs*

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The K-science labs were a busy place. Aside from the two head scientists, about ten men and women bustled around their stations, logging specimens, writing reports, exploring readings and generally being in research heaven. Yama had never been to the labs in any Shatterdome. Pilots didn't mingle with the scientists too often. There had never been a reason for it.

Pilots drove Jaegers. Jaegers killed Kaijus.

The aftermath was unimportant to them after they had done their job.

The lab space was huge.

It had to be.

There were specimen tanks that held complete organs or partial limbs, like a small toe or piece of a tongue, even something that looked like it had been an eye once. Not to mention the brain jars.

It was a freak show, but it was also their only way of understanding these things and preparing for a new Breach and the possibility of the next invasion.

Dr. Newton Geiszler was the bird of paradise in this setting. With his tattoos, the messy hair, the large glasses and the endless energy he projected he stood out. Not just because he was stripping off rubber gloves that went all the way to his armpits when Harlock and Yama entered. It was simply the whole man, who was either on too much caffeine or should lay off the sugar.

"There you are!" he called happily. "Welcome to K-Science, Rangers! Our humble home away from home."

Harlock stepped over thick cables snaking over the floor and feeding the tanks with either nutrients, fluids or powering the generators.

Yama saw him do a quick assessment of the place, something he always did; always automatically.

"Don't worry about that," Newton gestured at the wetly glistening Kaiju leftover he had on a trolley and had probably just been digging around in. "Just playing around."

"As usual," came the snide remark from the other side of the lab.

"And ignore Hermann."

"Dr. Gottlieb!" came the snap.

"Whatever." Newton made a dismissive gesture. "He'll poke you full of holes when it comes to Anteverse questions. I just want your blood." He grinned.

Yama found the guy funny. Harlock just looked at Geiszler like he wanted to punch him. Then again, it was his normal setting: dark broodiness, glaring, stoic suffering.

"Follow me," Newton called and made a wide, inviting gesture. "Got the set-up over here. We even have a private lab space for that."

It was private and it was away from prying eyes, but it was no less disorganized looking. Newton moved with the assured pace of a genius in control of the chaos, who knew where everything was and would probably falter should anyone change his system.

"Okay," he finally said, voice a little calmer. "To give you an idea what I'm gonna do, here's the brief version: both of you have been exposed to Dark Matter radiation for a while now. Captain Harlock for a lot longer than you, Ranger Logan. Like with nuclear radiation, the human body might not react favorably to such things. While we understand how bad and even deadly nuclear radiation can be for us, Dark Matter is unknown. Dr. Miime might have left notes somewhere, but no one can find them, which makes it even harder for us now."

Newton looked at them, waiting for a second if either pilot wanted to comment. Harlock was his usual, silent but attentive self. Yama just nodded.

"Now, the Dark Matter is only detectable when the drive powers up. It's a faint emission, but the pilots of the Deathshadows, you two, sit right in top of that engine. It's alien matter, captured and refined to make it work for us like a nuclear reactor, but it isn't. The only ones who understood, maybe understood, what it really does are either dead or have been declared MIA. Marshall Hansen wants to know what the risks are, what you have been exposed to."

"I feel fine," Yama commented.

"That's what they all say," Newton replied with a smile. "I can tell you that Raleigh hasn't felt any different physically after coming back through the Breach, but even the short time he was in there he was exposed to the Anteverse radiation and we could pick it up for a long time afterwards. No harm done," he added quickly. "He's totally fine."

"But we've been around the drive for longer," Yama concluded. "Still, I feel fine."

Geiszler picked up a pad and mounted what looked like a scanner onto it with a click. "Just sit back, relax, let me do some tests."

"Including blood."

He nodded.

Yama sighed and chose a seat, shooting his partner a pointed look as Harlock remained standing, arms crossed in front of his chest. The other man finally relented and sat down, looking less than happy about it.

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Newton sat on his chair, swiveling in full circles, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"You're going to get yourself sick."

He looked at his colleague and best friend, then did another 360 degree circle.

"I saw our two new additions leave." Hermann limped into the lab space.

"Yep." He popped the p a little.

"And you're less than happy about results," the other man stated.

"I'm… not sure what to feel, actually. Right now I just want to check my machines, whether or not they actually work. I know they do."

"They do," Gottlieb agreed, peering at the read-outs.

Newton took great care of his equipment, even if his lab space looked like a slab had taken up residence.

"Dark Matter irradiation. Quite a lot," Hermann commented. "This is Harlock?"

"Yeah. The man is a walking storage vessel for the stuff. His blood work is crazy and I really don't want to look at the DNA results when they come back." Newton did another full circle. "Logan's less… contaminated. He's been driving that Jaeger for two years and while there are lingering traces in his cells, Harlock is a lot worse."

"But not sick."

"Not that he would tell me." Geiszler grimaced. "It's like pulling worms! The man hardly talks. Glare a lot. Gives you this inscrutable look things all the damn time!"

Hermann smiled a little and tabbed a key, reading over the next page.

"This could be attributed to his exposure to the Anteverse, not just the Dark Matter."

"My thought's exactly, but he can't remember a thing. You know there are rumors that he wasn't there for just a few minutes or a little under an hour. His first eval after he was resuced said he mentioned that it felt like he was on the other side a lot longer."

Gottlieb pursed his lips. "Human perception of time is different under stressful conditions."

"What if it's true?"

"That Captain Harlock travelled in time?"

Newton burst out laughing. "No! It would be cool, sure! And I'd be all for time travel! Think about what we could do, what we could learn! But this isn't about time travel. I mean that time moves at a different rate inside the Breach or the Anteverse. We're talking a whole new dimension here, Herm! Nothing over there is what it is here, right? Anything could be different! We don't understand the Kaijus, we don't understand Dark Matter. Perception of time is one thing, but maybe it's like space travel, right? You move away from Earth and time changes. You come back and find you have greatgreatgreatgrandkids while aging only a few years."

Hermann studied him with a mixture of fond exasperation and serious contemplation.

"Ranger Becket's report begs to differ. There was also no time lapse."

"He wasn't there sitting on a Dark Matter engine, Hermann. He went there to blow things up. With a nuclear bomb. In and out. Kaboom! Ten years ago they sent a team into an alien world, using alien particles to power a Jaeger. What little is known about those experiments reads like a science fiction novel anyway! It's possible!"

Gottlieb leaned on his cane, looking thoughtful, pondering his colleague's words. "There is no way to prove it."

Newt grimaced. "Yeah."

"All we, you, can do is explore the Dark Matter and the consequences of being exposed to it for so long."

Because aside from the two pilots, no one else had ever been irradiated. The crews worked around an inactive drive. The Dark Matter only came to live when the pilots were strapped in.

"Not that Harlock will talk about it," Geiszler sighed.

"Talk to the Marshall. He can order him."

Newton groaned. "Because that always goes down well. I want his cooperation, Hermann, not the grumpy, crotchety, stubborn Ranger who'd rather not talk about something that might be our ticket to kicking alien butt again."

"You might need to put it like that for him to understand," Gottlieb teased.

His colleague laughed softly. "Yeah, maybe." He turned to the screen and frowned at it. "I'll wait for all results to come back. It'll take a while. Then I'll make up a battle plan."

Hermann squeezed his shoulder, then limped back out again, leaving Newton to his musings.

tbc...


	10. Chapter 10

Perched over his partner, Yama looked down at the face he could sketch in his sleep. He knew every little detail of Harlock's features, from the large scar across is his face, to the ruined eye, to the warmth in the good eye when they were just amongst themselves, or the cold distance when the other pilot was trying to keep the world away.

That happened far too often for his liking, but it was the man who Harlock had become after the Anteverse mission. It was a man driven by demons he barely understood himself, the shapeless nightmare of that mission hovering over him; without any resolution in sight.

His thumb traced over the prominent scar almost bisecting the narrow face, smiling softly as Harlock let him just explore.

In the beginning it had been close to painful to have the other man flinch at the slightest of caresses, have him turn away, refuse to let Yama see the damage. He had lived with it, the outward sign of a failed mission, and he had suffered the pitying looks or the curious stares.

Yama had been curious, sure.

He had never pitied him, though.

Harlock wasn't self-conscious. He was anything but that. He openly showed his battle injuries and he dared people to remark on them in any way with a harsh look or cold indifference painted on his features. Yama knew that he had been offered corrective and cosmetic surgery for the scar, to reconstruct the eye and maybe get a prosthetic for it. Medical science had come far and there were perfectly good replacements available to hide the fact that the man was blind in one eye.

He had turned down every offer.

This was his reminder.

This was what he had become and showed openly.

So he had the scar, the eyepatch, and he looked like a pirate.

Yama had teased him over that relentlessly, getting a smile after a while, maybe even a little joke.

Yama Logan knew how to get into those small cracks in Harlock's seemingly impenetrable armor and have the man become human around him. Lately he had also managed to have him act human around anyone but the crew, too.

Small victories.

He took them.

In the beginning it had taken quite some time for Harlock to undo the eyepatch when they were in private and let Yama see what was left of the right eye. Milky white, completely blind, the scar running over his left face ending where the right eye was.

It wasn't a hideous crate, nor was it torn and held together by shoddy, crude work from a doctor.

But it was a scar.

The first time they had Drifted, Harlock had thrown the whole experience at him, trying to drive Yama away. For days after the younger pilot had felt the searing pain, had thought he was blind in one eye, had a healing wound in his face that would scar and disfigure him.

Leaning down, kissing the scar, the lips, trailing the kiss over the blind eye, Yama felt another shiver.

"Wasn't so bad," he murmured into the messy brown hair.

Harlock's arms curled around his waist and hips, pulling him in closer. They were both fully clothed, wearing sweats and t-shirts. Neither felt the need to take this any further. It was simply the desire for physical closeness.

"He is relentless," Harlock murmured, long fingers tracing along Yama's sides and back. "No people skills. Nosey."

"He's a scientist." Yama grinned as he traced a sharp cheekbone, drawing a smile from the other. "He wants to know. And in a way, so do you." He tilted his head. "Don't deny it, Harlock. I've been in that skull of yours too many times."

He couldn't deny it. He did want to know, but there was also the fear of finding answers to the decade old questions.

"You might want to talk to Becket. I mean, he's been there rather recently."

Harlock didn't answer, the good eye boring into Yama. Yeah, he didn't like that. Talking meant opening himself up; not something Captain Harlock was prone to do.

"Think about it," Yama told him, smiling down at the severe expression, the scowl on the otherwise handsome features.

He mapped the forehead, smoothing out that scowl that put more years on Harlock than it ought to, tracing along the hairline.

"Might do all of us some good. You never know…"

"I don't want to know," Harlock said, voice whisper-soft.

Yama leaned closer, capturing the eye, holding the stubborn gaze. "You do," he replied, just as softly. "I do. This isn't just about you, Harlock. It's about both of us. I'm involved. Rather invested, too. No one ever tried to get to the bottom of what happened to you over there, what it did to you."

Harlock's eye closed and he tensed almost imperceptibly. Yama ran a feather-light caress over the right side of his co-pilot's face.

"We can see what it did here," he murmured. "I can see what it did. But there is more. When the drive powers up, you can feel it. I can feel it through you. It thrums through your bones, it goes to your very core, makes itself part of you, Harlock. You are Arcadia in that moment. You're both alive and ready."

Harlock caught Yama's hand and stopped the explorative caresses. They looked at each other for a moment, then Yama leaned down and kissed him. What he felt for Harlock was overwhelming sometimes, was something he couldn't explain and that wasn't connected to the Drifts. He loved this man.

"Think about it," he murmured against the warm lips.

He got no reply.

He didn't need one.

As he curled around his partner, Yama was sure that Harlock would agree to digging for some answers. He had been pushing this away for ten years.

Maybe now was the time.

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Harlock hadn't planned on talking to Raleigh Becket, but here he was, sitting next to Arcadia, her massive foot bigger than he was tall, sharing a rather good beer. It was the middle of the night and there was hardly anyone there but them.

It had surprised him to find another night owl, but then again, maybe he shouldn't have been surprised. Becket had seen more than anyone should have, had suffered the conscious loss of his co-pilot and brother, and if the rumors were true, he had at least a small fragment of Yancy Becket in his head.

Brain damage.

He had driven a Jaeger on his own, had walked her back to shore and then collapsed.

He had gone back into that Jaeger after a five year absence and he had dropped into the Breach, blowing up the Anteverse. Or at least a part of it.

Harlock had often wondered if he had been left with brain damage, too. He had lost Toshiro while they were inside the Pons, but he couldn't remember. He hadn't felt his co-pilot getting torn out of the connection, half of him suddenly dying and leaving a searing pain scittering across his mind plane.

"Better not to," Raleigh remarked when Harlock mentioned it, thumb playing over the condensation of his bottle. "Believe me."

Harlock's good eye rested on the black, scuffed armor of Arcadia's foot. "Something happened on the other side. I lost Toshiro, but I have no idea how. I was there longer than anyone thinks. I came back half dead, suffering from feedback of the Drivesuit, bleeding and burned in places where the overload went from the suit into the skin, but I have no idea how I did it and what I saw."

"Well, I came back and what I saw… it was nothing like anything I've ever seen before." Raleigh took a deep swallow. "Gave me nightmares for months."

Harlock was silent.

"Sometimes the dreams were extremely vivid," Becket continued. "They came out of nowhere. I was back there. Losing Yancy, then dropping into the Breach, then nearly losing Chuck. It all mixes together. Not remembering that would be a blessing. You might have a hole in your head, too, but at least it doesn't push memories at you."

Harlock grunted softly and opened another beer. "Describe it," he then requested.

Raleigh exhaled sharply. For a moment it looked like he wouldn't, but then he started to talk. Slowly, haltingly, he painted a picture of a place where Harlock had been, that he should remember himself, but even the detailed rendering of this Anteverse sparked… nothing. Not a single blip. Not even an emotion.

In comparison, the radiation of the Breach had triggered more than Raleigh's words. Sure, there was no memory and he had no idea what he had seen, but there was this shapeless thing, an emotion that was fear and horror, and still it wasn't..

Harlock silently contemplated his own damaged brain, his damaged soul, and he wondered who was better off. Raleigh could mourn a loss he had felt. He could feel fear of the unknown, of a dimension he had seen and a world he had either destroyed or seriously damaged.

Harlock had gone into the Breach with a man he had felt as close to as a brother, and when he had woken again, he had been alone and his memories void.

He had lost people before Toshiro. IN this long war, almost everyone had suffered the loss of friends, family and relatives. Civilians or military, it didn't matter. In the beginning it had been the Kaijus. Then the nuclear bombs had wiped out whole cities, just to kill the attackers. And later, even a Jaeger had been the reason for casualities.

Harlock had seen good friends and fellow pilots die. He had known the Nibelung teams and they had been a tight-knit group.

The silence stayed, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

"Thank you," Harlock finally said, voice low. "For telling me."

"Even if it didn't help?" Raleigh added, a lighter note to the question than Harlock would have suspected. Then again, he had had a lot of time to deal with it all.

"Even if."

"I'm no doctor or psychologist and I think you saw your share of them…"

Harlock nodded.

"But," Raleigh went on, "I think it's better this way. Your brain protects itself. Maybe it's neural damage, too. You came out alive, sane… almost complete. I can think of worse fates, Harlock."

He chuckled softly. "So can I."

People were moving around, the early shift starting already. It was six in the morning.

"Breakfast?" Becket offered, glancing at the personnel giving them brief, curious looks. Harlock was still news around the Shatterdome.

"Sounds good."

YHYHYHYHYH

It was where Chuck found them, sharing the silence over a tray of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon. It was a strange sight, the two men complete opposites in appearance, but both were probably master brooders. He knew Raleigh for close to eighteen months now and even today the man was still prone to deep thought moments. It was up to Chuck Hansen to pull him out of it and push him to enjoy the life in the here and now.

Chuck grinned to himself and stacked a bagel and a muffin onto his tray, next to eggs, sausages, bacon and beans. He felt ravenously hungry.

When he joined the two men, Harlock only gave him a brief nod.

"Up all night again?" Chuck asked, stabbing into his eggs. "'Cause I woke up to an empty bed and I seem to remember I went to bed alone, too."

Raleigh gave him a scowl and Chuck caught the smirk flitting over Harlock's lips.

"You snored," Becket just shot back.

"As if. You are the one who keeps the whole level up at night."

"Shut up and eat your beans."

Chuck grinned and chewed noisily on the beans, making a show of it. Raleigh gave him a mock disgusted look.

"Kids," he muttered.

Harlock chuckled. "Tell me about it."

"Hey, five years!" Chuck argued. "Gramps!"

Harlock emptied his coffee mug and rose gracefully. "See you later. Get some sleep, Raleigh. We have a Drop later."

"Yessir," Raleigh drawled, flipping a lazy salute.

Chuck watched the captain go, shaking his head. "He's something."

"Probably."

"You and him talked, so don't give me the cryptic crap. I hung around the crew, gave them a few tips where to get the parts and how we handle things here. They talked some about Arcadia, her crew, the stuff that happened to Harlock. Lots of rumors and guess-work. But they respect him, have stuck around all that time. Extremely loyal. You'd have a united front if you ever threatened their pilots."

Raleigh nodded. "He's… inspiring."

"And a stubborn son of a bitch."

"Remind you of someone?"

"You're not that bad, Rah-leigh." Chuck grinned widely.

Raleigh kicked him in the leg.

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The second time they Dropped and went down to the Breach, Harlock was more tense than Yama had ever seen him. There was an undercurrent of anxiety that was hard to miss.

The technicians were swarming around them, the spinal clamps fitting smoothly into place with soft clicks. Yama rolled his shoulders, feeling the first tingles of the connection. He put on his helmet, the Relay Gel sinking into the suit, ready to transmit the impulses between both pilots.

The digital HUD went online, the virtual environment bathing everything in a soft blue. The physical controls locked into place.

"Pilot-to-pilot connection engaged," the female voice told them evenly.

Yama felt the pull of the Drift and he let it happen. He felt the rush of another mind melding into his, saw flashes of memories, of emotions, felt the presence glide and whirl around him.

It was sensual.

Almost sexual.

It was a kind of intimacy that couldn't be achieved outside the neural bridge.

And he let it happen.

He was in perfect sync with his partner, the neural handshake was strong, but he could read the other's tension quite plainly.

"Harlock?" he asked, the voice only in the Headspace.

He got no reply. At least not in any way that could be seen as an answer. His partner was close, was part of him, and Yama felt him come closer, then push away, then drift back.

It wasn't the first time. Yama was used to the fluctuating distance, like Harlock wasn't sure whether he wanted closeness or not.

Yeah, it wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last.

This was Harlock. The man who was an enigma to many and an open book to Yama Logan.

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The moment they touched down on the ocean floor, Harlock's presence sharpened, a spike racing along the connection. Yama felt the apprehension flare, how Harlock drew in on himself, how he held on tightly to control.

Harlock's mind, the steel ball.

"Relax," he murmured, drifting closer and keeping his partner steady.

"I am." Harlock's voice was dark and cold. Dismissive.

"Uh-huh."

Not fooling me, he mused silently, making sure to let it leak over the connection between them.

The Dark Matter drive hummed underneath them and Yama sometimes imagined the particles as thin tendrils of purplish-black light, wafting around them, embracing them, enveloping Harlock and connecting him to Arcadia.

It was just his imagination, but it reflected something deeper.

Or was it?

Harlock had never mentioned those thoughts or images, but he must have picked them up.

The unease rose, but his partner fought it down, pushing away the notion that he was human and allowed to be afraid.

"You are," Yama said softly, under his breath. "Let yourself need something for once, Harlock. That's what I'm here for, y'know."

He caught a shiver, then a hug within the neural bridge, and Yama lifted a corner of his mouth.

Next to them, Epic North walked effortlessly across the ocean floor, heading toward the scar in the ground that had once been the Breach. There were numerous sensors everywhere, ceaselessly recording and transmitting data. They would check the sensors, bring back more samples, and have a look around for possible Kaiju remains.

Harlock shivered as they stopped next to the rubble on the ground. Yama sensed the rising discomfort, but it wasn't fear or even terror. It was the shapeless thing that reminded Harlock of what could have been, what he might never remember.

"Harlock?" he asked softly.

"Nothing."

It wasn't nothing. It was something.

At least it didn't get any stronger. There was no spike of pain this time. If Yama had to put it into words, it felt like sandpaper grating across his mind. Rough and unpleasant, but not drawing blood.

Their neural handshake remained steady and Arcadia moved purposefully toward the first sensor they had to check. Epic was already drilling for samples.

Yama decided not to push.

There was time for that later.

YHYHYHYHYH

Everything went smoothly this time. Harlock was his professional self, talking little, but the exchange between the two pilots happened nevertheless. The Drift made sure that thoughts flowed like within one mind, enabling them to understand each other without having to voice their thoughts.

The Drift held for five hours.

Yama was tired but happy afterwards, grinning happily when they were released from the Conn-Pod.

Harlock just nodded at the techs, then strode off into the changing room to remove the Drivesuit and take a shower.

Yama followed.

tbc...


	11. Chapter 11

That night, Harlock barely slept again. Whenever he closed his eyes and let his mind relax, darkness roiled over him, threatening to erase his mind, taking away memories of happier times.

Meeting Tochiro Oyama for the first time.

Clicking with him, despite their opposite backgrounds.

A friendship developing over the next months, then a year, as Harlock worked together with him to create the Deathshadows.

Tochiro introducing him to his family, his wife and daughter. Taking them out for lunch or dinner, laughing, talking, having a good time.

He dreamed of their Drifts, of perfecting the Arcadia, working with the scientist on a whole new level.

And then the mission.

It was like plunging into nothingness, with no recollection after strapping into the Conn-Pod and getting the green light from LOCCENT.

He caught a fragment of Tochiro's smile, his eagerness to get going. He was… had been… a scientist. The prospect of exploring the world beyond the Breach had excited him.

Harlock had good-naturedly suffered through the eagerness, the Drift keeping no secrets.

It was all that was left.

After that… a hole in the ground of his mind plane, sucking up everything, tearing the memories from his mind and erasing the events that had led to Tochiro's disappearance and death. Taking Harlock's eye.

He felt that darkness creep through him, tendrils snaking around to look for more to take away, and he fought back, twisting and turning, screaming. He wouldn't give up more of himself. Never!

Dark Matter pulsed through his veins, purplish black to his mind's eye, like a fog rising out of the ground and enveloping him, undoing him, creating him new. It wrapped itself around his form, a second skin, a whispery cloak of something that didn't belong into this dimension and was still here to stay. It was harnessed in the Drive, was brushing over Harlock's mind, anchored deep in his soul.

It had protected him. It had formed a shield and made him theirs. It had engulfed him, had changed him forever.

Harlock woke with a start, barely a gasp escaping his lips. His eye flew open, roaming the dark room, and a faint pain radiated from the ruined right eye. He touched the scar, felt the unevenness, and a shiver passed through him.

This was the worst nightmare since a long time. Harlock hadn't really dreamed of those last moments together and the time after for almost a year. Yama had been a stabilizing force in his life in so many regards.

Now, after getting so close to the Breach with the active Dark Matter Drive thrumming through him, it was coming back. No recollections, just the sense of his mind being torn apart and rearranging itself to erase what was too overwhelming for him to understand.

Harlock slid out of bed without disturbing Yama, who slept like dead. He dressed casually and left the quarters, needing to walk this off.

YHYHYHYH

Yama woke to an empty, cooling bed, and he sighed as he sat up and scrubbed a hand over his tired, stubbled features.

"Harlock…" he grumbled and stumbled into his sweats.

The man had always been high maintenance, but right now he was giving Yama a run for his money.

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"Talk."

Harlock looked up from his reading, hair falling into his fair, obscuring his features, hiding him. He stared at Yama, clearly not in the mood for any kind of conversation, then went back to whatever it was that was such a fascinating read.

Not that it helped drive Yama away. With the Drift and their relationship outside it, the Ghosts whispering between them after each Pons session, Yama Logan knew way too much to be intimidated.

"I'm not leaving, Harlock. Talk."

"Then you might be here a while," he growled.

Yama pulled up a chair and sat down, glaring. "You can sense the Breach. It's collapsed in on itself, but you can still feel it, right? It's not like feeling the weather in your bones. You can tell where it was without seeing the bomb site."

Silence.

"I'm there with you, y'know."

"Then you know."

"You're a stubborn bastard."

It got him a little twitch of a smile.

"Is it the Dark Matter? Because I know I'm not aware of anything but the Jaeger I'm strapped to and whatever the HUD shows us. Maybe because I haven't been exposed to it for over ten years? Because I wasn't on the other side and right in the middle of where the stuff came from?"

Harlock leaned back, eye closed, chin on his chest as he crossed his arms. His hair fell into his face, the long strands tickling his chin, and Yama itched to push it back.

"That is a 'possibly, maybe' then. So it's what happened to you in the Anteverse, combined with the Dark Matter. Alien particles and prolonged exposure to the Anteverse. You should tell Newton and Dr. Gottlieb."

Harlock's glare was back. With a lot more power now. Even through the veil of dark brown hair, the one eye was clearly visible.

"Don't you think it's important?" Yama pressed on.

"No."

"Well, I do! The war might be over, but the danger is still there. What you sense might be an asset. You are an asset, Harlock!"

His partner refused to even comment by glaring or grunting now.

Yama leaned forward, fixing a hard look on the stubborn man he called a co-pilot, partner, companion… and more. His feelings for Harlock were sometimes overwhelming, chasing each other in his head, threatening to be both sickeningly sweet and intensely deep. This was more than just infatuation or friends with benefits. He loved him and he wanted him to be happy, to enjoy life, to just forget about the pain and the dark hole in his mind for a while.

"You are the last original pilot of the Nibelung project. You're the surviving pilot who went into the Anteverse and came back. You might not remember, but your body does. It echoes that whenever we get close to the Breach. I can feel those echoes, too, you know. I just can't make neither heads nor tails of it."

"Neither can I," was the low whisper.

"But the K-scientists might."

Harlock looked at him, the old pain back full force. "I'm not going to be a guinea pig!"

"What I'm suggesting is to let them take readings of you down there. Let them help you in figuring out what remains of the Anteverse inside you. What it does to you when you're so close to the Breach." Yama refused to let his partner look away. "It's important."

"Not really."

"It is for me, Harlock."

"Why?" he asked outright.

"Because you're part of me, you stubborn bastard! You and I, we're Arcadia! I've been with you for two years and I know what makes you tick, alright?"

Harlock felt a muscle in his face twitch.

"I've stuck with you, come hell or high water! I've been in that head of yours and I know you!" Yama argued. "I'm not just someone you need to be a goddamn great pilot! I'm not just a body to warm your bed!"

"No, you're not," he confessed quietly.

"I worry about you! Because I love you!"

Harlock felt his chest constrict painfully. It wasn't a surprising love confession. They had known their feelings for each other since the fifth or sixth Drift. It had grown deeper and with each simulations, more had been shared. It had hit Harlock fast and hard, unlike any prior relationship, mainly because of the Drift. That had opened up every corner of Yama's mind, who hadn't even tried to keep any secrets.

"Just… talk? To Newton? The guy's okay. If not him, Raleigh. We can handle this, Harlock. You're not the lonesome cowboy and you're definitely not alone out here."

Harlock reached out and curled the fingers of his right hand over Yama's fisted ones. He smiled at his younger partner, open, warm, filled with the emotions he rarely said out loud. Yama bridged the last distance and kissed him.

"And you need to sleep, Harlock."

"Can't."

"I'll be there."

"Won't matter."

He took no offence. Yama knew he made little to no difference. Harlock's problems lay deeper and psychologists hadn't helped either. The sleepless nights came and went, flaring when a trigger was hit, quieting down suddenly once again. There were weeks on end when Harlock was his easy-going, calm and quietly funny self. Dedicated to his work, focused and intense.

When the shapeless nightmares came, he dropped into the abyss with them, clinging to the edge with a strength born out of desperation. Yama was his lifeline then. He needed the other man and while he had never said so out loud, he knew the younger pilot understood.

"Just try it. You need rest. C'mon," Yama said softly, wrapping his fingers around Harlock's hand.

Anchoring.

Yama gave him a knowing smile.

The captain followed him without much fuss.

YHYHYHYH

He slept for six hours.

The disquieting dreams weren't kept at bay, but they let him rest at least until dawn.

Harlock slipped out of bed and soundlessly dressed. Yama was still sleeping, snoring softly.

He smiled and left the quarters.

YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH YHYHYHYH

It was no great surprise to find Becket jogging around the empty track. From the looks of it he had been here for a while. His t-shirt was sweat-stained, his hair damp, and there was a sheen of sweat on his face. Despite that, he looked relaxed and at ease.

Harlock boosted himself up onto a crate and watched the American steadily lap another round. When Raleigh passed him, he just gave him a nod. He stopped another three rounds later, out of breath, eyes alight.

"Hey," he greeted the fellow pilot. "You could have joined if you wanted."

"Not much of a runner," Harlock replied.

Raleigh chuckled. "Good way to keep your mind off things for a while." He grabbed a towel and wiped off his face. "What's on yours?"

Harlock held out a bottle of water. "More than I want."

Raleigh shrugged. "I've got time."

YHYHYHYH

Which was how they ended up in the small kitchen area that was shared by everyone on the apartment level floor. It was silent this time of the night and aside from the occasional rumble of a generator or the hiss of the air conditioning, no other sound disturbed the quiet.

Raleigh made himself a sandwich, shooting Harlock a quizzical look as he grabbed an apple. The other man just held up his hand, ready to catch, and Raleigh tossed it at him.

YHYHYHYH

"Have you ever considered diving into the Drift and looking for the memories?"

Harlock looked over the rim of his glass, his good eye narrowed at Raleigh. "Looking for a rabbit?" he asked. "On purpose?"

Becket shrugged. "It might be a way to get back what you're missing."

Harlock grimaced and emptied the glass.

"There has been talk about applying that technique in trauma cases, amnesiacs, PTSD."

"No thanks."

"Because you tried already or because you don't want to know?"

It got Raleigh a sharp look, almost a glare. "Would you want to recall the death of your co-pilot?"

"I already do. Every day. I will for the rest of my life," was the calm, level reply. "It never got less. It's there, in my mind, inside the Drift, and in my nightmares."

Harlock looked at him, long and hard, almost searching for a lie. Finally he lowered that piercing gaze.

"Wouldn't you want to forget?"

"No."

And it was the truth. Raleigh felt a little surprised himself, but it wasn't a lie. He didn't want to erase that moment, because it had shaped his life, his future. He had lost everything that day, had suffered for five years, trying to crawl into oblivion, disappear from the world, and it hadn't worked out. Building the Wall hadn't eased the pain.

He had dealt with the past.

And he would never want to forget Yancy, even that last moment together.

"If I ever get my memories back, I might not want to remember them," Harlock murmured after a while. "Something happened and it killed Toshiro while sparing me. It was bad enough for my brain to lock the events behind an impenetrable wall. Or it erased everything of that day. I think I want to keep it that way."

Raleigh gave a little grunt. "Might be helpful."

"You retained memories from your brother," Harlock stated. "How many?"

Few people asked Raleigh openly about that moment when Yancy had been violently yanked out of the Drift, when their shared Headspace had been torn apart and memories had become fragmented.

"Not sure. It's not even like I can remember something that only happened to Yancy." Raleigh turned the apple he had yet to eat around between his fingers. "It's more like… hearing him. Feeling him."

He glanced at the other man and found understanding in his gaze. A knowledge of something that only Raleigh had had before.

"You and Toshiro?" he asked softly.

"I can't be sure," was the equally soft reply. "It's a feeling. Like someone looking over my shoulder. Mostly when I'm Drifting."

Raleigh nodded.

"No words. Not really. And sometimes I think it's Arcadia herself, that Toshiro is there, inside those wires and plates." He huffed a derisive little laugh. "I know how it sounds."

"As crazy as hearing your brother talk to you, feeling part of him being alive inside you," Raleigh agreed with a small grimace.

Harlock chuckled. "I only talked about it to Dr. Miime once. She said it could be because of the Dark Matter, but she never explained. All of Arcadia is one big experiment, a secret she took with her wherever she went. Bringing her through the Breach into the Anteverse did something. No one ever figured out what."

"You talked to Newt?"

Harlock scowled.

"He's a good guy," Raleigh told the other man. "Hyper, a little bit on the crazy scientist side, but a good guy. He'll stay with the research into the Dark Matter, no matter what. He might be the only one, him and Dr. Gottlieb, who can figure out what Dr. Miime did. And what happened to you."

"And prod me with needles and electrodes?"

The blond grinned. "Not too much."

Harlock fell silent. Raleigh took a bite out of his apple and just let the other man digest what he had heard, think his own thoughts.

It was how Yama found them, padding into the kitchen and looking like he had just fallen out of bed. His hair was in wild disarray and he looked still bleary with sleep.

"Hn," he just commented as he discovered the two pilots, then made a beeline for the coffee machine.

Harlock twitched a fond smile and Raleigh chuckled silently. He nodded at the captain as he rose.

Time to find his own partner and get to work.

tbc... 


	12. Chapter 12

"Your whole body is saturated with Anteverse particles. Not just Dark Matter, which makes up a rather good part of it, but also stuff Raleigh carried with him from his brief stint on the other side, too. His exposure rate was a lot lower than yours, close to nil, actually, in some regards. Mako's exposure was even less than that. We understand next to nothing about the Anteverse, so I can't tell what this will do to you or has already done."

Newton looked a little apologetic and he gesticulated vaguely with his hands.

"I found no tumor markers, no sign of radiation poisoning," he went on with a more cheery note. "Physically, you're in very good health. Your blood work is perfect, if we disregard the Dark Matter or other exotic particles present in your cells."

"Which is nothing we can change," Harlock stated levelly.

He had been listening silently, attentively, the whole time, never interrupting. If Newton was intimidated by the dark-clad pilot who had been staring at him all throughout his explanations, he didn't show.

Then again, it was hard to intimidate a man who had drifted with a Kaiju; twice.

"Nope. We can't. I doubt a blood transfusion or scrubbing yours through a machine would actually help. Hard to change irradiation of a living organism, especially with particles we don't understand. Your body doesn't even try to clear the exotic particles from your system. I suspect logging so many hours in your Jaeger, always exposed to the drive, did that. Now, your sensitivity to the Breach…"

Harlock grimaced. Sensitivity. It sounded… weird. On top of everything else, that was something he didn't really like or wanted to deal with. Especially deal with. He had clawed himself out of the abyss and started to really live again when Yama had become his co-pilot. Now he was getting thrown into the abyss once again.

Fuck…

"Since you are, in a way, a walking accumulation of Anteverse particles, it might explain your reaction to getting so close to a place where the only access point to that dimension existed. Your can sense the thin barrier between that world and our world. I bet you could map it out in detail, even go looking for more weak spots, and we could set up a map of them." Excitement leaked into Geiszler's voice. "Like a metal detector, just concerning alien radiation."

Harlock remained silent, feeling himself tense up again. His back grew rigid and he took on an almost military stance.

"I'd really love to take a look at your physical reaction, add an EEG, when you approach the Breach. It would be an incredible opportunity and a way to have an early alert to possible new Breaches."

"When?" Yama asked.

Harlock almost flinched as his partner spoke up. Yama had been silent so far and Harlock had actually forgotten the other man was standing just behind him, listening attentively.

"The next Drop is scheduled in three days," Newton answered readily. "I can have a sensor array whipped up and we can outfit the Drivesuit accordingly. It's completely harmless. Painless, too, in case you're worried." He flashed a smile at Harlock.

"Good to know," Yama said with a quick smile of his own.

"I'd like to do a mirror scan of you, Ranger Logan. For comparison. You have signs of Dark Matter radiation in your blood and cells, too."

"Sure thing."

Harlock almost ground his teeth. A hand touched his back, warm and heavy even through the uniform, and he forced himself to relax.

Newton clapped his hands in excitement. "Good! Great, actually! I'll work out something that doesn't hinder you while piloting Arcadia. I'll also talk to the Marshall. We can include this into the next Drop, no problem at all!"

Yeah, no problem.

Harlock left the labs, a dark cloud almost visibly hovering over him.

He had become a guinea pig.

Yama was his silent shadow, right by his side, his support, his anchor and his sanity.

"This is helpful," his co-pilot finally said when they were standing in the Bay, looking at the enormous and familiar figure of their Jaeger. "Extremely so."

He snarled soundlessly.

Yama curled gentle but firm fingers around Harlock's wrist. "We have an idea what's causing those reactions now," he said quietly. "We're getting answers. You are getting answers, Harlock. Newton's on your side."

"Maybe," he replied darkly.

"Definitely."

"You sound like Becket."

"Which is a good thing. He's been through that stuff, too. Different stuff, sure, but running along parallel lines. You and him, you two talk, right?"

Harlock didn't answer. Yama just ignored it.

"I know you do, Harlock. 'Cause you have a lot in common. He vouched for Newt. I feel we're in good hands and that while he comes across strongly, he wants to help, wants to know, without dissecting us."

It got him a little grunt.

"Listen." Yama touched his arm and Harlock stopped, looking at his co-pilot. "We're in this together and have been for two years now. This affects me as much as you. We have no idea about the Dark Matter; no more than two or even ten years ago. You have that stuff in you, whether you want to or not, and it… touches you. I've been exposed for two years, logged into the Arcadia and your brain, touching it. I can feel it through you and maybe it'll start touching me once day, too."

Harlock's expression was stony, but there was a slightly panicky glint in his eye.

"I want to know, Harlock. You do, too."

"It won't change anything," he finally said, voice almost gritty.

Yama shrugged. "Maybe not for us, but for future generations. The Anteverse aliens have been to our world before. They will try again if they survived the blast. I think it's a good enough reason to let the K-Scientists figure out what the Dark Matter can do. I'm all for saving our world."

Harlock stood silently, looking at the younger man, and finally the tension slowly bled out of the rigid set of his shoulders.

Yama gave him a nod, smiling.

Harlock just raised his eyebrow, then turned and walked down the corridor again. Yama grinned and followed.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

"You have a passenger seat?" Yama asked with a teasing lilt to his voice.

"We would have strapped him in the trunk, but the Marshall wouldn't have that," Chuck replied.

Newton stuck out his tongue.

"Very mature," Raleigh told him.

"Like everyone around me," the K-scientist replied, letting the techs check his suit. "I'm not a piece of cargo."

"Opinions differ on that one," Chuck shot back.

"I'd drive a Jaeger myself," Newton told him. "Your dad's not going for it."

"I wonder why."

It sounded like familiar banter, like they had argued along those lines before.

"You thought about offering tours?" Yama grinned, clearly enjoying himself. "People might just pay money for the experience."

Harlock pushed Yama toward the door to head for their own Conn-Pod with a roll of his eye. The other pilot laughed and shook his head.

"Can you imagine Newt in a Drift?"

"He managed it with a Kaiju."

"Riiiight. That's not piloting a Jaeger. From what I heard, it was also more of a close call than what he tells."

"I'd believe it would have to be. Drifting with an alien mind."

"But if push came to shove, even you would do it," Yama concluded as he stepped into their Conn-Pod and let the technicians hook him hop.

Harlock's cool semi-smile was answer enough. The man would do anything and everything to defend his planet.

YHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYH

Newt had been aboard Epic North several times before, but each Drop was as exciting as the first time. He wasn't part of the Drift, just an observer as the two pilots linked through the Pons, and he studied it from a different point of view than the LOCCENT. Watching Raleigh and Chuck move completely in sync was amazing. There was hardly any verbal communication, though they sometimes did talk to one another, probably for Newton's sake.

As the Conn-Pod connected to the main body of the Jaeger, Newt checked his own instruments, which ran autonomously from Epic's. Nothing he did at his station could influence the Jaeger or the pilots. He was getting a strong signal from Arcadia and despite Harlock's misgiving expression when he had stepped into his modified Drivesuit, the man had been far more cooperative than Newt would have believed.

The Conn-Pod dropped, which was always like a rollercoaster ride and had Newt's stomach flip-flop, though he had never gotten motion-sick. He loved rollercoasters and fun fair rides, so this was just like one of those.

"Ready?" Raleigh asked, looking at him with an easy smile.

"More than. Let's go," Newton replied with just as much ease.

Hermann was probably limping a ditch into the floor again, but Newton was happy where he was. Even as just a passenger, riding in a Jaeger was incredible each and every single time.

YHYHYHYHYH

The dive was eventless for the pilots, though full of data collecting for Newton. He caught the fluctuations from Harlock's Conn-Pod, the spikes as something reacted with the pilot or the pilot with that something. He didn't call him out on it right away, just saved the information, let it run its course.

The spikes happened at irregular intervals, some longer, some just a brief twitch on the screen.

But they came from Harlock.

Yama was unaffected.

Newton quietly made a few notes to talk with Hermann about it, then maybe prod at Harlock a little more. The man was as close-mouthed as they came, but he clearly reacted to the radiation from the Breach and… or… the Breach combined with the Dark Matter Drive he sat on.

It was fascinating.

Freaky, slightly frightening, but fascinating.


	13. Chapter 13

"This is… amazing. Stunning. Maybe even a little frightening," he told Gottlieb as they sat in a quiet corner of their lab space, over a very late dinner. "He's human, but he's also saturated with Anteverse matter. He can feel the Breach. I bet he could feel every tear in our dimension where the Anteverse connected in the past millions of years. Like a walking, breathing, living detector."

Hermann looked thoughtful. "And you believe the irradiation from the Anteverse brought that on?"

Newt sighed. "I don't know what to believe. Harlock's been to another dimension, spent how many hours in there, came back half dead and flooded with Dark Matter, which hadn't happened in all the time he was working with Arcadia Zero. He told me that the crew and the pilots were periodically checked. Quite thoroughly really. No one showed any radiation signs. Afterwards… another matter."

"But we don't know what happened to him over there."

Newton nodded, poking at his mac'n cheese. "No recordings, no memories, no co-pilot." He drew a string of cheese. "Complete mystery."

"Which you want to solve."

He gave Gottlieb a bright smile. "So do you, Herm."

Hermann grimaced. "We would be working with a lot of unknowns."

"Which never stopped us when we tackled the Anteverse and the Kaiju."

"Please don't tell me you want to Drift with him!"

Geiszler laughed. "No way." He shook his head. "We're not compatible and I'm not into a three-way."

Hermann groaned and pushed his empty plate away. "You are terrible."

"I'm a genius."

"Debatable."

"You've yet to prove me wrong," he teased. "And seriously, Hermann. This is something really big. The Dark Matter drive is only one part of the equation and I know we can solve it. I've seen you look at the specs and you've got ideas, right?"

"Vaguely," he confessed.

"Which is better than none. And I know we can get to the bottom of that thing. It was built by a human scientist, not some alien life form from another universe. Even if you describe her like one."

Gottlieb chose not to comment.

"Harlock is another part of this. And we have data from the Breach and down inside the Throat, as well as a few pieces from what Raleigh's suit recorded. We can do this. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not within a few months, but we can find answers."

"We can," Hermann agreed. "With time and resources."

"We're right in the middle of the resources, Herm. We've got Jaegers to get down to the ocean if we need to. Arcadia is here. The Shatterdome is the nexus of all operations. I'm not planning to leave any time soon."

"Neither do I."

Newton smiled brightly. Gottlieb found himself smiling back.

YHYHYHYHYHYYHYHYHYHYHYYHYHYHYHYHY

Harlock stood under the shower, letting the water wash over his skin. It pooled at his feet, gurgling as it disappeared in the floor. The shower stalls were almost brand new, freshly tiled and the shower unclogged.

Hot water was luxurious and Hong Kong even had a decent-sized swimming pool, but Harlock had never been one for taking to the water.

Not before his final mission, not after.

Yama liked to hit the pool, do his laps and come out exhausted but glowing and alive.

Harlock either watched or left his co-pilot to his exercise.

He exhaled, water spraying from his lips, and hung his head to let the liquid run over his shoulders, dripping heavily to the ground. His hair was heavy, hanging into his eyes more than usual, and he probably looked like a wet dog, as Yama liked to tease.

Sleep had done him wonders.

The shower did the rest.

The tension was still there, deep inside, the knot that rarely ever eased completely. The Breach sang to him, the alien world taunting and cajoling, letting him know that he had been part of that and would always be, for the rest of his life.

But Harlock wasn't just stubborn.

He was determined.

He would go back down there, would face his demons and he would win.

Shutting off the water, he grabbed a towel and dried off. The showers weren't private, which was something that hadn't changed, even if the Shatterdome was far from maximum capacity. It might never be again.

So he had the whole room usually to himself, unless it was after a Drop and the pilots crowded in together.

Hair damp and in wild disarray, dressed only in black sweats with Arcadia's logo on his left breast, Harlock walked through the mostly empty hallways, enjoying the quiet hum of the Shatterdome around him. He liked the peace and quiet. He wasn't a lonely person, nor was he truly alone, but he liked to keep to himself sometimes. Crowds tended to get too oppressive after a while.

Yama was usually the one to draw him out of his solitary moments, dragged him along to have lunch or dinner, to meet with the crew, to get to know others.

Or to sit through yet another examination by Dr. Geiszler.

Those had turned out to be less invasive and trying as he had feared. Newton was quiet and serious when he worked, concentrating on his work, and he only launched into his hyper-active mode when Gottlieb verbally poked or prodded him.

It had been rather enlightening to sit in the lab, watch the two men work harmoniously together on a problem, solve it between them, and then start bickering about menial things.

Yama would elbow Harlock and raise his eyebrows whenever he was around to witness those interactions. When Harlock was alone, he quietly watched, forgotten by the two men, until Newton would almost jump in surprise as he turned and discovered he still had a 'patient' waiting.

YHYHYHYHYHY

As he walked into the quarters, Harlock found his co-pilot sitting on the bed, ear buds in, listening to music as he read something on his tablet. His face was a reflection of concentration. He looked up, flashed Harlock a quick smile, then went back to whatever he was doing.

Harlock dropped his towel in the hamper, then walked over to the younger man and peered over his shoulder at the screen. It was a logic game, one of the many Yama liked to play and which Harlock had mastered a while ago, much to Yama's frustration.

He lifted a corner of his mouth into a fraction of a smile and left him to it. Harlock had planned on visiting Arcadia and checking on his Jaeger, talk to Kei and Yattaran, look up the Marshall and maybe get a new Drop scheduled ahead of time.

He needed to train this.

He needed to grow a thicker skin, so to speak, which meant more exposure.

"You going to the Bays?" Yama asked as he pulled out the ear buds. Taking his silence as an answer he added, "Kei's called about ten minutes ago. She's close to committing a murder and hiding the body."

"Newt," Harlock guessed.

"Yep. He and Yattaran are all over Arcadia. Best buds and all. I think Yattaran is getting tattoo tips."

Harlock chuckled, low and rough.

"I'm on my way."

Yama waved and went back to his game.

YHYHYHYHYHYYHYHYHYHYHYYHYHYHYHYHYYHYHYHYHYHY

The Jaeger Bay was a bustle of activity. Skyfall Prime was still without her pilots, but the crew was all over her and keeping her ship-shape. Epic North was battle-ready and ready to Drop in two hours. If it was up to Harlock, Arcadia would accompany her again. He really had to talk to Hansen.

Yattaran was hard to miss. The man was a physical presence to be reckoned with, tall, broad-shouldered, a bit on the heavy side without actually looking overweight. He moved with a limberness you wouldn't attest to him. His voice was loud enough to be heard over the din of the working crew.

At his side, Newton looked a lot smaller than he actually was, but he had no less presence. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, showing the colorful Kaiju tattoos in all their glory. His hair was as wild as usual, standing up from where he had very likely run his hands through time and again.

Harlock caught fragments of their conversation and had to chuckle to himself. Tech talk. Jaegers and engines. Newt might be the biological side of the K-science team, but his interest in Jaegers was just as fierce and deep. He had six doctorates ad none of them had been a gift; he had worked hard for them.

"Captain!" Yattaran greeted him with a booming voice and a wide smile. "He's still alive, no matter what Yama said."

"I never had any doubt."

"Hard to kill," Newton quipped, but he was looking around just in case Kei was hiding somewhere with a wrench. "And she's a bit prickly, isn't she?"

"Kei is protective of Arcadia. We all are." Yattaran clapped a big hand on the narrow shoulder. "And you crawling all over her makes her nervous."

Newton huffed. "I'm not doing anything! Just looking, no hands."

Yattaran grinned. "But you want to."

"I never said I don't. That engine is a beauty and it really needs to be explored." Geiszler's eyes glowed with enthusiasm. "I know Hermann would want to get his scanners into that core as well, but he has manners."

"Not you?" Harlock asked, tilting his head.

"I'm all manners, but I'm not too cheap to ask."

"Pester, you mean," Yattaran rumbled.

"You guys have no idea what this engine can do! No one does! It's something alien and still not completely unfamiliar. It was developed by one of ours, so if anyone can get close to understanding it, it's us."

He spread his arms, smiling winningly.

"Full of yourself much?" the chief mechanic sighed. "But he's right, captain," he addressed the pilot. "We've been ignoring that thing for so long, it's like a mythical ball of glowing light. We have no idea, can't fathom what it does. Those two might."

Newton's face took on a puppy dog look. It was almost comical.

"It's not for me to decide. I don't own Arcadia or the Dark Matter core," Harlock said matter-of-fact. "She is the property of the PPDC. Marshall Hansen is my commanding officer. It's his decision." His gaze fell on the blonde woman standing in the shadow of Arcadia's massive foot. "No matter our feelings."

Kei stepped forward, looking unhappy. "Captain…"

"Kei," he only said, a warning in his voice.

As much as Harlock seemed to act like the captain of a ship, as much the crew turned to him for guidance sometimes, they were all PPDC personnel. The Marshall was in charge.

She nodded. "Okay. I don't like it, but okay."

Newton looked offended. "I'm not a newbie, okay? I've been working with Jaegers for over ten years and Hermann's been a lead in developing the Omega drive. Without him, most of those machines wouldn't exist! You can hover all you want. I want to know what you know anyway. You're both the lead engineer and the lead mechanic, right? You know Arcadia inside out. I just want to understand the Dark Matter core. She might be the one asset we have should the Kaiju make a return."

Newton glanced at Harlock. Yes, he knew that he himself was an asset, too. Geiszler just didn't say it out loud, in case the crew had no idea.

So far they hadn't. Only Yama knew.

"Full cooperation," he just said.

"Yes, captain."

That settled, Harlock turned and left. It wasn't really his job, but those were his crew… his friends. And this was their new home.

YHYHYHYHYHY

Newton became a regular in the Bay, then seemed to mutate into a fixed part of the crew, it seemed. As apprehensive and cautious, maybe downright suspicious, as some had seemed, they came around to the whirlwind that was Dr. Newton Geiszler. Together with Mako, Kei and Yattaran, he constructed a model of Arcadia Zero and the Dark Matter Drive. It was as detailed as Harlock had ever seen one.

Unlike Kei and Yattaran, Newton dared to actually get right into the heart of the matter, so to speak, no pun intended. He poked and prodded at the Dark Matter, took samples, spent endless hours chasing his minions around the lab to analyze what he had brought back.

And driving Herman insane.

There was hardly anything to compare the results to, but everything was diligently charted, saved and backed-up.

Probes were drilled into the ground where the Breach had been, with sensors attached, and Newton went on several more dives with Arcadia close by to see if there was any kind of spike from the energy residue in the ground that could be compared to what was happening to Harlock.

"Does he ever take a day off?" Kei asked, shaking her head at the man darting around the scaffolding and happily examining yet another part of the drive.

"I think he studies Kaijus as a hobby," Chuck remarked with a grin. "The Dark Matter Drive has become his new job."

"Huh."

"His and Dr. Gottlieb's. Hermann's the Anteverse specialist. Newton's… kinda wide-spread in his fields of expertise. He's also always fascinated by anything and everything Kaiju or Anteverse."

"Figured that out on day one."

"Wait till Q gets here at the end of next week. He'll be up here, with Newt, and you'll have to move them away with a crowbar to launch Arcadia."

Kei rolled her eyes. "So looking forward to that." But she did look excited by the prospect to meet the former Quartermaster of the Vancouver Shatterdome.

Chuck grinned and pushed away from the wall, heading to the other Bay where Epic was being maintained.

Kei remained behind, amusement on her features as she watched Newton bustle around. She joined him not much later and listened to hi theory about the Dark Matter's intricate workings.

YHYHYHYHYHY

A week later, Harlock made himself as scarce as possible, deciding to start up running with Raleigh instead of being the center of attention for Newton and the newly returned Q. While the former Quartermaster was more laid back and less likely to overwhelm him with questions, he was immediately intrigued by the Dark Matter, the Arcadia, and her pilots.

"You run out on me again and I put down a request for separate quarters," Yama told him when Harlock returned from a day spent with Raleigh in Hong Kong.

"Bad day?" Harlock asked, trying to hide his amusement.

"Like you don't know! Newton's dragging Q everywhere with him, showing him around Arcadia, and of course the guy is interested in the effect of Dark Matter on human cells. Your cells, not mine!"

"So why are you angry?" Harlock asked calmly, letting more of his humor trickle into his words.

"'Cause I'm the default they turn to when you're not around, that's why! Geez, they can be a bit much." Yama plopped down onto the bed.

Harlock chuckled as he removed his duster and slipped out of the flight jacket. "You want me to make it up to you?"

Yama cocked an eyebrow. "Sex isn't the solution to nosy scientists."

"Hm, but sex helps you unwind."

He had stopped in front of the bed and looked down on the other man, who had let himself fall back onto the mattress. It was an inviting sight. Yama spread out his arms, grinning back up at him.

Harlock found himself smiling back.

"So, was that an offer?" Yama asked coyly.

Harlock didn't answer verbally, just settled over his thighs and leaned down, capturing the smart mouth in a kiss.

Yama hummed his agreement.

YHYHYHYHYHY

They might never get to the bottom of what had happened to Arcadia Zero's crew when they had gone through the Breach and down the Throat, but Newton was piecing together microscopic puzzle pieces one kernel at a time. He had put part of his team to good use analyzing the tons of data collected from the Drops, even using some of Hermann's minions, which had the other man grumble and growl at him for the rest of the day.

Another team was busy looking at Harlock's blood cells right down to the molecular level. Harlock had been quite patient the last time Newt had requested blood and other samples, but it had been a forced patience, he knew. Harlock wasn't happy about the physical aspect of the research.

Yama hadn't so much twitched when he had come in for his samples.

There was a glaringly obvious difference in how the Dark Matter had affected both men individually. Yama showed sign of radiation residing in his body, but on a rather light level. Harlock was saturated by it. And every time they connected to Arcadia, his body reacted to it.

The Dark Matter reacted to him.

Harlock didn't talk a lot about what he felt when he was inside the Pons, when the machine became part of him.

And Newton had asked. Directly. Repeatedly.

The man was truly tight-lipped and terribly private.

Yama tried to help, gave Newton a few answers, as much as he could anyway, but the scientist really needed Harlock's help here.

Well, slow and steady, he told himself, though that was hardly his own motto or the way he worked. Right now he had to adhere to it, though. One day he might get the answers he was looking for.

As much as Harlock was capable of answering anyway. He had lost a good part of his memories concerning the mission to the Anteverse and who knew what else had gone missing, without him even realizing.

One day.

Or never.

Newton was prepared for it all.


End file.
